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COPYRIGHT DEPOSni 



EARLY MACKINAC 



i know an isle, an emerald set in pearl, 

jNIounting the chain of topaz, amethyst, 
That forms the circle of our summer seas — 

The fairest that our western sun hath kissed. 

For all things lovely lend her loveliness; 

The waves reach forth white fingers to caress, 
The four winds, murmuringly meet to woo 

And cloudless skies bend in blue tenderness. 

The classic nymphs still haunt her grassy pools; 

Her woods, in green, the Norseland elves have draped, 
And fairies, from all lands, or far or near. 

Her airy clifi's, and carving shores, have shaped. 

Of old, strange suitors came in quest of her. 
Some in the pride of conquest, some for pelf; 

Priests in their piety, red men for revenge — 
All seek her now, alone, for her fair self. 

liev. David H. Riddle. 



EARLY MACKINAC 

A SKETCH 

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE 

MEADE C. WILLIAMS 



NEW EDITION 

REVISED AND ENLARGED 




NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 

1912 



Fiji 



COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY MEADE C. WILLIAMS. 
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY MEADE C. WILLIAMS. 
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY Dl FFIELD & COMPANY. 



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TO ALL THOSE 
WHO HAVING ONCE KNOWN 

THE ISLAND OF THE STRAITS 

STILL REMEMIJER ITS CHARM, 

AND REMAIN UNDEl! THE POWER OF ITS SPELL, 

THIS UOOK IS DEDICATED. 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 

This book was first issued in 1897. My thirteen 
summers at Mackinac Island up to that date have since 
increased to sixteen. I have felt moved from my ac- 
(juaintance witli the Island and my interest in it, to fur- 
nish in written form some of its history. 

The book now enters its third edition. It is very con- 
siderably enlarged over the first and second issues. 

While it is believed this portrayal in its historical por- 
tion may have interest for the general reader, it at the 
same time carries a local coloring which may more par- 
ticularly appeal to those who know the place and who 
visit its shores. As the charm of the locality is due, in 
no small degree, to the halo of antiquity which hangs 
over it, I have felt warranted in giving special (though 
not exclusive) attention to early Mackinac. 

The work embodies the result of no little research and 
investigation. As the reader will perceive, I am much 
indebted to the various writings of Henry E. School- 
craft who dwelt for twenty years in the upper lakes re- 
gion, and for eight years of this time was a resident of 
the Island. I also expi-ess my obligations to the val- 
uable series of " Collections and Researches," a work 
carried on by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical So- 
ciety. These collections at present nuuiber twenty-eight 
volumes. Tlie use they make of the important " Haldi- 
maud Papers," of Canada, bring to hand much of the 
early military history of the Straits and of the Island 
fort. 

*S7. Louis, Mo. Mackinac Island, 

Jane, 1001. 



PEEFACE TO PRESENT EDITION 

This book by my father came from an affectionate 
interest in the place where he spent many of the hap- 
piest summers of his life, and where, while planning 
another and larger book about this historically roman- 
tic region, he died in the summer of 1906. 

Even those on the cool deck of the passing steamer, 
who merely look at the quaint 18th century fort ex- 
quisitely placed upon the hill overlooking the cres- 
cent harbor, must feel the charm of this vividly green 
island with the pure white beach sharply cutting the 
brilliantly blue waters of the Straits of Mackinac. 

But my father's feeling went deeper than aesthetics. 
His devotion was more like the love of place shown 
in the sentiment for ancestral landmarks. He be- 
gan his annual sojournings many years ago, before 
the days of garish hotels and cheap excursions. 
With occasional interruptions for travel he remained 
faithful, even after the island was pronounced 
^' spoiled " by many of his friends among the original 
summer colony. So he knew the old inhabitants, all 
of them. He was a friend — a generous friend, we 
learned afterwards — to the fast disappearing In- 
dians and the half-breeds who carried in their veins 
the blood of some of the oldest families of France, as 
was betrayed by their names. From them he picked 
up Indian tales, gathered local traditions of the 
French, Indian and English wars, and collected 



PKEFACE TO PRESENT EDITION 

stories about the '^ good old days " when Mackinac 
was the headquarters of the John Jacob Astor fur 
trade. Most of all, he became an expert in the stir- 
ring history of the Indian missions. He led in the 
restoration of the old mission church on the island — 
and insisted upon keeping the old gray weathered 
boards free from modern paint ! . . . 

In this way he began gathering, for his own de- 
lectation and the entertainment of family friends, 
lore and legend which were perhaps on the verge of 
oblivion. In this way his romantic and historical 
interest kept increasing until it became a passionate 
hobby, for which he was often joked at the dinner 
table. He bought many books, took journeys to dis- 
tant libraries, and, in short, became somewhat of an 
authority upon this interesting chapter of American 
history. 

The following pages are the result. They were 
written originally for private circulation, but when 
printed as a book it at once became so popular that 
new editions — with revised and added chapters — 
were demanded every season. This was very pleas- 
ing to my father. 

Jesse Lynch Williams. 

Wasli'mgton lioad 

Princeton^ N. J. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface , „ . . , vii 

CHAPTER I 

The Island's name — Its etymology — Its sacredness in 
the Indian's mind — Indian legends — Poetic vein in 
Indian nomencUiture — The passing of the Indian — 
Difference between early and modern types ... 13 

CHAPTER II 

Early settling under the French flag — Pioneer military 
post on northern mainland — La Hontan's visit — 
Removal to Detroit and return — Post establisiied on 
southern mainland — English sway — Discontent of 
the Indians — Ball game and massacre — Alexander 
Henry — VVawatam — Skull cave — Henry's book of 
Travels 27 

CHAPTER III 

Removal to the Island proposed — Transfer effected — 
Major Sinclair — Captain Robertson (Robinson) — 
Rnm — Captain Scott — Building the fort — Slowly 
completed — Its ancient style 40 

CHAPTER IV 

American Independence achieved — England's delay in 
surrendering Mackinac — A second treaty required 
to secure American occupation — Greenville treaty 
with the Indians — Fur trade — Mackinac in 1810 as 
described by Washington Irving — Another early de- 
scription 52 

CHAPTER V 

War of 1812 opens — "British Landing" — Fort Mackinac 
captured by the British — Of great importance to 
British interests — Official reports — Building of Fort 
Holmes (Fort George) 67 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

American expedition to recover Mackinac — Effects en- 
trance at " British Landino^ " — The battle — Major 
Holmes killed — American forces withdraw — Destroy 
British supplies in Georgian Bay — Blockade effected 
— Blockade raised — Mackinac again ceded to United 
States in 1815 — Old cannon — British remove to 
Drnmmond Island 76 

CHAPTER VII 

Strained relations between Drnmmond Island and Mack- 
inac — Indian mischief-makers — Heated Correspond- 
ence — The British Commandant's disappointment — 
Drnmmond Island becomes American territory — 
Early officers at Fort Mackinac — The Fort aban- 
doned and transferred to State of Michigan — Offer 
of re-cession 89 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Fur trade — The Hudson's Bay Co.— The Northwest 

Co. — ■ Michilimackinac an early depot for furs Tohn 

Jacob Astor an operator — Organizes the American 
Fur Co. — Mackinac Island as headquarters — Inter- 
esting relics 99 

CHAPTER IX 

Summer on the Island in the early days — Indian and voy- 
of/eiir resorters — Canoes and Canoe voyaging — Boat 
Songs — Descriptions by Col. McKenney, Mrs. Jame- 
son and H. H. Bancroft 110 

CHAPTER X 

An early incident on the Island famous in medical an- 
nals — Alexis St. Martin — Dr. Wm. Beaumont — 
Beaumont's book — Tribute by Medical Societies of 
Michigan — Mackinac Society in early times — Mod- 
ern Mackinac — An early prediction realized . . . 120 

CHAPTER XI 

Early citizens of the Island — Ramsey Crooks as con- 
nected with the fur trade — Robert Stuart, resident 
partner in the Astor Fur Co. — Henry R. Schoolcraft, 
government agent, scientist and explorer — His liter- 
ary works and character 128 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XII PAGE 

Jesuit missions — Marquette — Church of St. Ann at Old 
Mackinaw, and on the Island — Trinity Church — 
Congregational Church — Early Mission School and 
Old Mission Church — Story of Chuska — Old Mis- 
sion Church restored 139 

CHAPTER XIII 

Exceeding beauty of the Island — Woods — Vegetation — 
Water views — Curiosities in stone — Arch Rock — 
Sugar Loaf — Lover's Leap — Robinson's Folly and 
its legends 156 

CHAPTER XIV 

The Island's celebrity as a place of resort — Early-day 
visitors — Books of description — Countess Ossoli 
(Margaret Fuller) — A New York doctor's visit in 
1835 — Captain Marryatt — Mrs. Jameson — Miss 
Harriet Martineau 171 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Map of Mackinac Island 

The Griffin — First Sail Vessel on the Lakes .... 

Ottawa Canoe 18 

La Hontan's Sketch 23 

Old Fort Michilimackinac on South Side of the Straits . 31 

Alexander Llenry 37 

Fort Mackinac To-day 47 

View From the Fort 50 

Mackinac Beach (east end). Sketched in 1843 . . . 57 

A View of Early Mackinac 03 

Indian Wisfwam 06 

Walk-in-the-Water OS 

The Perry Cannon 74 

American Fur Co. Old Scales 84 

Leslie Avenue 91 

The Shore Drive 99 

Old Fur Company's Desk 108 

The Shore Drive 114 

Dr. William Beaumont 1'21 

Henry R. Schoolcraft, LL.D 129 

The Old Agency 135 

Rev. Wm. Ferry — Mrs. Ferry 145 

Old Mission Church 151 

Arch Rock 157 

A Modern Mackinac Garden 159 

Chimney Rock 1^3 

Sugar Loaf 1C4 

Robinson's Folly 1^'^ 

Leslie Avenue 1"2 




THE GRIFFIN — FIRST SAIL VESSEL ON THE LAKES. 

Built by La Salle, on Niagara River a few miles above the Falls, in 
1678-79, and named in allusion to the arms of his friend. Count 
de Frontenac, in which griffins figured. Set sail August 7, 1679 
— La Salle her commander and Hennepin the journalist of the 
expedition. This was the first voyage ever made by Europeans 
on these inland seas. Arrived in the Straits August 27th, at 
what is now St. Ignace of the northern mainland, four miles 
across from the island of Mackinac. Anchored in a bay overlooked 
by two rocky bluffs, known in Indian tradition as the He and She 
Rabbit. The foi-mer also known as Sitting Rabbit, or Rabbit's 
Back. The Indians were greatly amazed to see a ship in their 
country, and to hear the sound of its cannon. Hennepin says, 
" In this bay where the Griffin was riding we looked with pleasure 
at this large, well-equipped vessel amid a hundred or a hundred 
and twenty bark canoes coming and going from taking white fish 
which these Indians catch with nets." Leaving the Straits the 
party set out on Lake Michigan and sailed as far west and south 
as Green Bay. Here La Salle sent back the Griffin, loaded with 
furs and bound for Niagara. The vessel was lost, with all on 
board — it is thought in the northern part of Lake Michigan and 
thus perhaps not far from the Mackinac region. 



EARLY MACKINAC 



CHAPTER I 

MiCHTLiMACKiNAC WHS tliG old-timc name, not for 
our beautiful island alone, but for all the country 
round about us, north to Lake Superior and west to 
the head of Green Bay. It was the island only that 
was first thus called. The Avord grew out of it, and 
small bit of land though it is, it threw its name over 
a vast territory. 

The name has been variously spelled. In old his- 
tories, reports, and other documents, I have found 
Mishlimakina, Missilimakinac, Mishilmaki, Michil- 
imachina, Michilimaqina, Missilimakina, Michiliak- 
imawk; while in one standard history, when this re- 
gion is spoken of, it invariably appears as Michili- 
makinaw.-^ In its abbreviated form it has been writ- 
ten Mackinack, Macina, Maquina, Mackana, Macki- 
nac, Mackinaw. In all the earlier periods following 
the settlement of the island by the whites, in books 
of travel and of history, and in mercantile records, 
Mackinac and Mach'maiv were used interchangeably, 
though the form Mackinciw was most commonly 
adopted. Also in many of the early maps and at- 
lases it is also given. Steamboat companies doing 
business on the island generally advertised their boats 

1 Henry Adains' " History of the United States." 

13 



14 EAKLY MACKINAC 

as of tlie " ^lackiiiaw Liiie.'^ Business firms so wrote 
the word — at least as frequently as the other form. 
So this was quite general during all that time, ex- 
cept that the official name of the military post held 
to the termination ^' ac." But since the railroad 
companies built their modern terminal town across 
the straits and called it Mackinaw City, for the sake 
of convenience in distinguishing, the name of the 
island is now uniformly written ^Mackinac. In pro- 
nunciation, however, without attempting to settle the 
question by the laws of orthoepy, it may be remarked 
that it is considered very incorrect to sound the final 
c; and that to the ears of residents, and old hahitues 
and lovers of the island, it is almost distressful and 
irritating to hear it called anything other than Mack- 
hiaw. The pronunciation which has prevailed in the 
locality and throughout the surrounding region for 
generations past has become the law of usage, and 
should determine the question. It is said that among 
the early residents of the island there was but 
one person who ever called it MackinacA% and he was 
regarded, in his day, '' as an eccentric." A compro- 
mise may perhaps be allowed, by taking the name as 
if it bore the termination ah, and giving it a sound 
between the flat and the very broad. Julian Ealph, 
a noted American traveler and descriptive Avriter, has 
referred to the subject, and says the confusion is due 
to the French manner of " gallicizing " the words of 
any language they touch, so that all through our 
West, where they had early settlements, they thus 
^' spelled words one Avay and pronounced tliem an- 
other, in a style peculiar to their own language, and 
maddening to the blunt and practical Anglo-Saxon 



STUDY OF THE NAME 15 

iiiiiid." And lie charges us to remember that the 
name is always Mackina^r^ no matter how it is spelled. 
Another traveler visiting the island in 1830, and 
writing about it, after first giving its name in full as 
Michilimackinackj says that in conformity with pop- 
ular usage, ^' we will henceforth say '' Mackinaw/' 
Col. Wm. M. Ferry, of Park City, Utah, who lived 
on the island as a boy from 1821 to 1834, and who 
has a Avide intelligence concerning its early local 
history, tells me the Canadian Frenchmen sounded 
it as Mack-ee-naw, and from that it came into com- 
mon use. The word is further familiar to us from 
what, in our summer wear, is called the " Mackinaw 
hat." And the '' Mackinaw boat," as descriptive of 
a certain build of sailing craft common long ago in 
these straits, is a term still written as of yore. 

The origin and signification of the word is in some 
obscurity. All agree that the first part of it, 
'' Michi," means great. It is preserved in the name 
of the state, Michigan, and in the name of. the 
lake, Lake Michigan — meaning great waters. The 
French took it up, spelling it Missi ; hence the name 
of the river Mississip23i — great river, the father of 
waters. Concerning the remainder of the name 
which follows Michi, w^e are not so sure. The com- 
mon view is that the form of the island, high-backed 
in the center, as it rises above the waters, and hand- 
somely crowning the whole, suggested to the Indian 
fancy the figure of a turtle. Hence that it became 
known as the land of the Great Turtle. 

Heriot, an English traveler in North America, 
Avho published his '' Travels through the Canadas " 
in 1807, touched at Mackinac and reports as the ori- 



16 EARLY MACKI^^AC 

gin of the name that the island had been given, as 
their special abode, to an order of spirits called 
Imakinakos, and that " from these aerial posses- 
sors it had received the appellation of Michilimack- 
inac." 

Schoolcraft, who is the best authority on all ques- 
tions pertaining to the Indian language, as well as 
to the customs and characteristics of that race, says 
that the original name of the island was Mishi-min- 
auk-in-ong, and that it means the place of the great 
dancing spirits — these spirits being of the more in- 
ferior and diminutive order, instead of belonging to 
the Indian collection of gods ; a kind of pukwees, or 
fairies, or sprites, rather than Manitous. 

At the time of his first visit to the island in 1820, 
Schoolcraft was inclined to the common view whicli 
connected the name with the turtle. But later, after 
he had lived many years among the Indians, and had 
made a study of their language and their modes of 
thought, he preferred the other explanation. The 
transition from the Indian Mishi-min-auk-in-ong to 
the French Michilimackinac he thus explains: The 
French used ch for sli, interchanged n for I, and 
modified the syllables auh and oiig respectively into 
acl;. Perhaps the ack, or ac as we now have it, is 
but a suggestion of the nasal sound they would give 
to the final syllable ong, in the Indian word. A fur- 
ther hint may be furnished in the fact that the French 
form of the name, as we find it in old historical rec- 
ords and other documents, so frequently bears the 
termination ina instead of ack. We have, then, only 
to give the broad sound to the final a, to see hoAV 
Mackinaw may have become a common pronuncia- 



STUDY OF THE NAME 17 

tion. A philological explanation, strictly scientific, 
is not claimed. Many local words, especially geo- 
graphical terms, thronghont all the npper lake re- 
gions of early settlement, show corrnptions as they 
have passed from the Indian langnage first into the 
French of the early explorers and missionaries, then 
into the patois of the illiterate French Canadians, 
and then into a mongrel anglicized form.^ 

Perhaps the different views as to the significa- 
tion of the word — the great turtle, or the great 
spirits — can in a manner be combined. The tnr- 
tle was held in great reverence by the Indians. In 
their mythology it was regarded as a symbol of the 
earth and addressed as mother." The fancied phys- 
ical resemblance of the island conld easily work in 
Avitli their mythical idea of the tnrtle, apart from its 

1 Bois Blanc, the French name of tlie large island near Mack- 
inac became BoJ) b'low, and then in popular speech drifted into 
Boh-i-low. Near the head of Lake Michigan, is a small island 

(now a light-house spot), nam.ed by the French lie aux Galets, 
but which in local phraseology has become Skilli-ga-lee. And 
north of it, at the entrance to the Straits, and also marked by 
a light-house, is Wau-go-cliance, which is often designated col- 
loquially as Wau-go-slianks, sometimes as " Wabble-shanks," 
and by some of the steamboat men, consulting brevity, " The 
Shanks." 

2 Andrew Lang, in his "Myths, Ritual and Religious" (voL 
1, p. 182), mentions certain of the Indian tribes as holding the 
fancy that the earth grew out of the tortoise. One form that 
tlie legend took was that Atahenstic, a woman of the upper 
world, had been banished from the sky, and falling, dropped 
on the back of a turtle in the midst of the waters. The turtle 
consulted with the other aquatic animals and one of them, gen- 
erally said to have been the nuisk-rat, fished up some soil, and 
fashioned the earth. Here the woman gave birth to twins and 
thus began the peopling of the globe. Thus in the crude fancy 
of the Western Indians do we iind a reflection or fragment of 
the ancient myth which once prevailed in the oriental mind 
that the world rested on the back of a turtle. 



18 



EARLY MACKIXAC 



liaviiig any etjniiological connection. And tbns wliat- 
evcr way the name is stndied it becomes associated 
with some Indian conception of spirit. All singnlar 
or striking formations in the work of natnre — ob- 
jects that were of an nnnsnal kind, or very large and 
imposing, as lofty rocks, overhanging cliffs, moun- 
tains, lakes and such like — these poor imtutored 




OTTAWA CANUE. 



children looked upon as the habitations of spirits. 
Our island, therefore, physically so different from the 
other islands and the mainland about it, with its 
glens and crags, and its many remarkable and strange- 
looking stone formations, would easily be peopled 
for them with spectres and spirits. They regarded it 
as their sacred island — a sort of shrine — and a fa- 
vorite haunt of their gods, and cherished for it feel- 



LEGENDAKY 19 

ings akin to awe ; and from the surrounding regions 
would bring their dead for burial in its soil. It 
seems to have been rather their place of resort and 
temporary sojourn than of permanent abode. 

There is something very fascinating in the frag- 
ments of early Indian fancies and traditions and 
legends Avhieli are associated with our island. It is 
interesting, too, to note how the legends and the my- 
thology of the Indians and their dim religious ideas 
so often took a poetic form. Eor instance, in their 
pagan and untutored minds they thought of the island 
as the favorite visiting place of Michibou, the great 
one of the waters, their Manitou of these lakes. 
That coming over the waters from the sunrise in the 
east, he would touch the beach at the foot of Arch 
Rock; that the large mass of stone which had fallen 
from the face of the cliff in the long ago, causing the 
arch above, w^as '' Manitou's Landing Place " ; that 
the arch was his gateway through which, ascending 
the hill, he would proceed with stately step to " Sugar 
Loaf," which in fancy they made to be his wigvvam, 
or lodge — the cave on the west side, known to all to- 
day, being his doorway. Then again, the Sugar Loaf 
Stone and others of that conical, pyramidal shape — 
such as the one which stands in St. Ignace, and those 
in different parts of the northern peninsula, and yet 
others which formerly stood on this island — that 
these strange, uncanny-looking rock formations, by a 
modification of fancy, they would personify into 
great giants or monsters who towered over them as 
sentinels to note Avhether they made due offerings 
and sacrifices to Manitou, their success in hunting 



20 EARLY MACKINAC 

and trapping being conditioned on this kind of re- 
ligious fidelity.^ 

The Indians, so spontaneously recognizing the 
world of spirits, were fruitful in ideas and sentiments 
of reverence. We are told there were no profane 
words in their vocabulary. Think of a people who 
did not know how to swear because they had no 
words for it. It is said that the nearest they ap- 
l^roached to cursing a man was to call him '' a bad 
dog." ^ So, too, in the nomenclature of wild, un- 
couth-looking objects of nature. While our white 
pioneers and prospecting miners and avant couriers 
of civilization in the West have so often attached to 
such objects the name of the devil, as "" Devil's Lake," 
" Devil's Slide," " Devil's Half-acre," " Devil's Scut- 
tle-hole," and such like, the Indians generally gave 

1 Schoolcraft noted a curious fact among the Chippewas — 
that they fancied tlie woods and shores and islands were in- 
habited by innumerable spirits who during the sunnner season 
were wakeful and quick to hear everything that was spoken, 
but during the winter existed only in a torpid state. Tlie In- 
dian story tellers and legend mongers were therefore very free 
in amusing tlieir listeners with fanciful and mysterious tales 
during the winter, as the spirits were then in a state of in- 
activity and could not hear. But their story telling was sus- 
pended the moment the piping of the frog announced that 
spring had opened. That he had endeavored, but in vain, to 
get any of them to relate this sort of imaginary lore at any 
other time than in the winter. They would always evade his 
attempts by some easy or indifferent remark. 

2 " I have made many inquiries into the state of their a^o- 
cabulary, and do not, as yet, find any word which is more bitter 
or reproachful than iiiatclii annemoash, which indicates simply 
bad dog. They have terms to indicate cheat, liar, thief, mur- 
derer, coward, fool, lazy man, drunkard, babbler. But I have 
never heard of an imprecation or oath. The genius of the lan- 
guage does not seem to favor the formation of terms to be used 
in oaths or profanity. It is tlie result of the observation of 
others as well as my own, to say, that an Indian cannot curse," 
Schoolcraft's " Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes," 



POETIC YEm 21 

them some expressi^'e and harmonious poetic name. 
On the island we have the '' Devil's Kitchen/' but 
Ave may feel sure that was not of the Indian's naming. 
The writer of this sketch learned from an old resident 
who had passed the whole of an extremely long life 
on the island, that once, long ago, a shoemaker took 
up his abode in that cavern and did his cobbling and 
his cooking there. Possibly that gave rise to the 
name. 

In this habit of nomenclature which linked their 
ideas with the phenomena of physical nature, we 
see a beautiful though often rude and childish vein 
of poetry. Their name for the great cataract of 
Xiagara was '' Thunder of the Waters," as that for 
the gentle falls now within the limits of the city of 
Minneapolis, was Minnehaha or '^ Laughing Wa- 
ters." The familiar white fish of these regions was 
the " Deer of the Waters." To the horizon limit, 
when they looked out on the lake to where the thread- 
like line of blue water loses itself in the clouds and 
sky, they gave the name which signified the " Far- 
off Sight of Water." The name for General Wayne, 
who did so much to overthrow their power in th-e 
West, was ^' Strong Wind " ; while the American sol- 
diers, from their use of the sabre and sword in battle, 
were known as the " Long Knives." Their concep- 
tion of a fort, with its mounted cannon, was '^ The 
high-fenced house of thunder," while the discharge 
was, '' The arrow that flies out of the big gun." 
Their word to designate the Christian Sabbath, meant 
^^ Prayer Day." The month of February they called 
" The moon of crusted snow," as the snow could then 
bear up a man in the hunt, Avhile the feet of the stag 



22 EAKLY MACKINAC 

would break tbrough. In the personal names given 
to individuals we often see a poetic association with 
the objects of nature most familiar to their minds. 
A little son of Mr. Schoolcraft, then government 
agent at the Sault, was admiringly called by the Chip- 
pewas '' Penaci/' or '^ The Bird ; " while the name of 
Mrs. Schoolcraft's mother, a full-blooded Indian 
woman, was a many-syllabled word, which meant 
'^ Woman of the Green Valley." The English au- 
thoress, Mrs. Jameson, when visiting the Sault, 
after '' shooting the rapids " with the Indian guides 
(the first European woman who had ever ventured 
on the exploit) was re-named '^ The Woman of the 
Bright Eoam." I find the names of five Indian 
chiefs, each as translated giving quite a poetic sense: 
The Sun's Course in a Cloudless Sky, Bursts of 
Thunder at a Distance, The Sound of Waves Break- 
ing on the Rocks, The Eeturning Clouds, The Bird 
in Eternal Flight.^ 

As their whole life and range of observation was 
constantly associated with tempests, forests, waters, 
skies, and all the various phenomena of physical 
nature, this gave shape to their conceptions and their 
questionings. It has always seemed very significant 
that when John Eliot, the pioneer missionary to the 
Indians in New England two hundred and fifty 
years ago, began his instructions among them, he was 
met at once by their eager and long pent-up questions 
of wonder : ^' What makes the sea ebb and flow ? " 

1 In contrast, we note in their modern reservation and semi- 
civilized life a degeneracy in the style of names they are fond 
of bearing, such as Sitting Bull, Thunder Bull, Crazy Snake, 
Wolf-in-the-middle, Ground Nose, Creeping Bear, Man-afraid-of- 
his-horses, Rain-in-the-faoe, etc. 



INDIAN MENTALITY 25 

"What makes the Aviiid hl<nv ? ' ' ''What iiiakos tlie 
thunder ? " 

Parkman represents the Jesuit missionaries in Can- 
ada, two centuries since, as testifying that the Indians 
had a more acute intellect than the peasantry in 
France. At his best, however, the red man was hut 
the " child of the forest," and in the presence of the 
pale faces was not destined to endure. They are a 
doomed and a passing race — '' meeting the fate they 
cannot shun." Many reasons or causes might he as- 
signed for this. One reason is that which was given 
by a very thoughtful Indian in a speech on a cer- 
tain occasion long ago, before a company of govern- 
ment agents here on the island beach. Said he, very 
reflectively: ''The white man no sooner came than 
he thought of preparing the way for his posterity; 
the red man never thought of that." In this pro- 
found observation is embodied one of the latest de- 
ductions in social philosophy. 

Of course, in thus speaking of the Indians, refer- 
ence is had to manifestations of their mental char- 
acter as seen in the earlier days, and not to Indian 
life and character at present, as seen in the Western 
reservations. By contact with the whites, it has 
been said, they lost their originality.^ 

1 Catlin, wlio ranks next to Schoolcraft in his study of the 
Indians, in an extensive classification of qualities, contrasts 
their original character in their " primitive and disabused 
state," with their secondary character after " being beaten into 
a sort of civilization." From being handsome, he says, they 
had become ugly; from free, enslaved; from affable, reserved; 
from bold, timid; from warlike, peaceable; from proud, hum- 
ble; from independent, dependent; from healthy, sickly; from 
sober, drunken; from increasing, decreasing; from landholders, 



26 EARLY MACKINAC 

" In their own woods they are a noble race; brought near to 
us, a degraded and stupid race.'' — Mrs. Jameson. 

" The imprisoned lion in the showman's cage differs not more 
widely from the lord of tlie desert, than the beggarly frequenter 
of frontier garrisons and dram-shops differs from the proud 
denizens of the woods. It is in his native wilds alone that the 
Indian must be seen and studied." — Parkman in " History of 
the Conspiracy of Fontiac." 



CHAPTER II 

The annals of our island since its discovery and 
occupation by the whites carry iis back to an early 
day. Explorers from France and settlers from Can- 
ada were here two hundred and fifty years ago. 
Traces of French and Indian mixture are every- 
wdiere seen. Indian wars and massacres have red- 
dened these shores. Stories of English power vic- 
torious over French, in far back colonial times, have 
a part in the history of this region. In a later day 
the island had its stirring incidents in our own war 
with Great Britain, in 1812. Here was the head- 
quarters of the Mackinaw Fur Company and the 
Southwest Fur Company, and afterwards of the 
powerful American Fur Company, of which John 
Jacob Astor was the chief proprietor, and which 
made our island for the time the largest seat of com- 
merce in the western country.^ Christianity, too, 
has had here its early enterprises, at the hands first of 
the French Jesuit missionaries of the 17th Century, 
and afterwards of Protestantism. 

In regard to early military annals, history points 
to the fact that with the exception of the brief aban- 
donment by the French forces from about 1701 to 
1714, this region of the straits had been a seat of con- 

1 Detroit, Vineennes, St. Louis, Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the 
Woods, and otlier far distant points were but dependencies of 
Micliilimackinac, as the metropolis of the Indian trade. 

27 



28 EAKLY MACKIXAC 

tinuous military occupation from the last quarter of 
the 17th Century down to 1895, when to the 
surprise and regTet of all who knew the island's 
history, the United States Government abolished the 
post. Three different flags have floated over a fort 
in these Straits of Mackinaw during this long period 
past. These have been in the order of French, Eng- 
lish and American. The French were the pioneers. 
They established Fort Michilimackinac, over where 
now the town of St. Ignace stands, four miles across 
on the northern peninsula. This was about tw^o hun- 
dred and twenty-five years ago. 

Baron La Ilontan, who had come from France to 
Canada at an early age and afterwards became Lord 
Lieutenant of a French Colony in Newfoundland, 
visited our Mackinac neighborhood in 1688. In a 
imblication of his travels in Xortli America he gives 
three letters from the Michilimakinac settlement of 
that day.^ As accompanying his picture on the ad- 
joining page he thus writes : " You can scarce be- 
lieve what vast sholes of white fish are catched about 
the middle of the channel, between the continent and 
the isle of Missilimakinac. The Outaouas" and 
the Hurons could never subsist here, without that fish- 
ery; for they are obliged to travel about twenty 
leagues in the woods before they can kill any harts or 
elks, and it would be an infinite fatigue to carry their 
carcasses so far over land. This sort of white fish, 
in my opinion, is the only one in all these lakes that 
can be called good ; and indeed it goes beyond all 

1 The book was first published in French, 1705. Afterwards 
an enlarged edition appeared in English form, 1735. 

2 Ottawas. 



LA IIONTAN'S LETTEK 29 

other sorts of river fisli. Above all, it has one singu- 
lar jDropcrty, namely, that all sorts of sauces spoil 
it, so that it is always eat either boiled or broiled, 
without any manner of seasoning. 

'^ In the channel I now speak of, the currents are 
so strong that they sometimes suck in the nets, though 
they are two or three leagues off. In some seasons it 
so falls out that the currents run three days eastward, 
two days to the west, one to the south, and four north- 
ward; sometimes more and sometimes less. The 
cause of this diversity of currents could never be 
fathomed, for in a calm they will run, in the space of 
one day, to all the points of the compass, i. e., some- 
times in one way, sometimes another, without any 
limitation of time ; so that the decision of the matter 
must be left to the disciple of Copernicus. 

'^ Here the savage catch trouts as big as one's 
thigh ; Avith a sort of fishing-hook made in the form 
of an awl, and made fast to a piece of brass wire, 
which is joined to the line that reaches to the bottom 
of the lake. This sort of fishery is carried on not 
(july with hooks, but with nets, and that in winter 
as well as in summer. 

'' The Oiitaoiias and the Ilurons have very pleas- 
ant fields, in which they sow Indian corn, pease and 
beans, besides a sort of citruls and melons. Some- 
times these savages sell their corn very dear, espe- 
cially when the beaver hunting happens not to take 
well; uj^on which occasion they make sufficient re- 
prisals ui^on us for the extravagant price of our com- 
modities." 

For a short interval the Erench Government, under 
the instigation of the post Commander, Cadillac, with- 



30 EARLY MACKI:NAC 

drew the garrison (as already mentioned) and aban- 
doned this region as a military seat in favor of the 
new settlement at Detroit. That was abont the open- 
ing of the ISth centnry. Bnt this vacating was soon 
seen to be bad policy, and in 171-i the fort 
was re-established. When, however, the restored fort 
becomes known again in history, it is fonnd located 
on the Sonthern Peninsnla, across the Straits, where 
now stands the railroad town, Mackinaw City. 
Whether on the retnrn from Detroit the military at 
once located the fort there, or first resnmed the old 
site at St. Ignace, and removed to the other Penin- 
snla at some later period, is not definitely known. At 
any rate it was the same military occupation, and the 
same Fort Michilimackinac, irrespective of the time 
of change in the site. It stood about half a mile from 
the present Light Llonse, and sonthw^esterly from the 
railroad station ; and was so close to the water's edge 
that when the wind was in the west the waves w^onld 
often break into the stockade. Its site is plainly 
visible to-day, and visitors still find relics in the 
sand. 

After the conquest of Canada by the English, in 
the deciding battle of Quebec on the heights of Abra- 
ham in 1759, all this country around came under the 
English flag. The Indians, however, liked better the 
Erencli dominion and their personal relations with 
the French people than they did tlie English sway and 
English associations, and they did not take kindly to 
the transfer. One reason for this preference is said 
to ha.ve been that the French were accustomed to pay 
respect to all the Indians' religious or superstitious 
observances, whereas an Englishman or an American 



PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY 33 

was apt, either to take no pains to conceal liis con- 
tempt for their superstitions or to speak out bluntly 
against them. To this can be added the Avell known 
fact of the greater readiness of the French to inter- 
marry and domesticate with the Indian,^ 

This strong feeling of discontent under the change 
of empire, on the part of the Indians, w^as fanned 
and skillfully directed by that great leader and dip- 
lomate, Pontiac ; ^ and '^ The Conspiracy of Pon- 
tiac " is the well-known title of one of Parkman's 
series of North American history. This conspiracy 
was no less than a deep and comprehensive scheme, 
matured by this most crafty savage chief, for a gen- 
eral Indian rising, in which all English forts, from 
the south to the upper lakes, were to be attacked si- 
multaneously, and the English rule forever de- 
stroyed. The Indians would vauntingly say, " You 
have conquered the Erench, but you have not con- 
quered us." Out of twelve forts, nine were taken, 
but not long held. 

While this scheme was, of course, a failure in its 
larger features, the plot against the old post of Mich- 
ilimackinac across the water succeeded only too well. 
The strategy and horrors of that capture read like a 

1 « When the French arrived at this place," said a Chippewa 
Chief at a council once held at the Sanlt, " they came and 
kissed us. They called us children and we found them fathers. 
We lived like brothers in the same lodge." — Schoolcraft, in an 
address before the Michigan Historical tiociety in 1830. 

- " In force of character, subtlety, eloquence and daring, Pon- 
tiac was perhaps the most brilliant man the Indians of North 
America have produced." — "A History of Canada" by Chas. G. 
D. Roberts. Schoolcraft rated him in the same way. Drake, 
in his ^'Indians of the Xortlucest,'' says of liim: "His fame 
in his time was not confined to his own continent but the 
gazettes of Europe spread it also." 



34 EARLY MACKI^^AC 

tale of fiction. The storv is old, but to repeat it in 
this sketch will not be amiss. ]t may be introduced 
under the title of 

AN HISTORIC BALL GAME. 

In 1T63 a band of thirty-five English soldiers and 
their officers formed its garrison. Encamped in th? 
woods not far off was a large number of Indians. 
One morning in the month of June, with great show 
of friendliness, the Indians invited the soldiers to 
witness their match game of ball, just outside the 
stockade. The Chippewas were to play the Sacs.^ 
Then, as now, ball playing had great fascination. 
And as this was the birthday of the King of England, 
and the men were in the celebrating mood, some in- 
dulgence was shown, discipline for a time relaxed, 
gates were left ajar and the soldiers and officers care- 
lessly sauntered and looked on, enjoying the sport. 
In the course of play, and as a part of the pre-con- 
certed stratagem, the ball was so struck that it fell 
within the stockade line of the fort. As if pursuing 
it, the players came rushing to the gate. The soldiers, 
intent in watching the play, suspected nothing. The 
Indians now had an open way within, and instantly 
turned from ball-players into warriors, and a terrify- 
ing '^ whoop " was given. The squaws, as sharing in 
the plot, Avere standing near with tomahawks con- 
cealed under their blankets. These were seized, and 
then followed a most shocking massacre. The sur- 
prise of the fort and tlie success of the red men were 
complete. 

1 Baggatiway was their kind of ball game. 



ALEXANDER HENRY 35 

The details of tliis dreadful event are vividly and 
harrowingly given by the English trader, Alexander 
Henry, sojourning at the time, with his goods within 
the stockade, and unfortunately a sharer in the dread- 
ful scenes and experiences. The humble Henry may 
well be called the Father of History, like another 
Herodotus, as far as this episode is concerned. Ex- 
cepting the very meagre report of the humiliating 
capture made by Captain Etherington, the officer in 
command, there seems to be nothing but the narrative 
of this English trader. His description of the fort, 
the purpose it had been serving, the movements of 
the Indians preceding the affair, as well as the minute 
description of the stratagem and its success, and the 
terrible scenes enacted, is the chief source of infor- 
mation ; and one can take up no history of this period 
and this locality without seeing how all writers are 
indebted to his plain and simple narrative. 

When the fort was captured by the savages, he him- 
self was hidden for the first night out of their mur- 
derous reach, but was discovered the next day. Then 
followed a series of experiences and hair-breadth 
escapes and turns of fortune very remarkable, while 
all the time the most barbarous fate seemed impend- 
ing, the suspense in which made his sensations, if 
possible, only the more distressful and torturing. It 
was not enough that his goods were confiscated and 
his very clothes stripped off his body, but his savage 
captors thirsted for his blood. They said of him and 
their other prisoners, that they were being reserved to 
'' make English broth." After four days of such hor- 
rors there came a turn which Henry says gave '' a 
new color to mv lot." During his residence at the 



36 EARLY MACKINAC 

post before the massacre, a certain Chippewa Indian 
named Wawatam, who nsed to come freqnently to 
his honse, had become very friendly and told him 
that the Great Spirit pointed him ont as one to 
adopt as a brother, and to regard as one of his own 
family. Suddenly, on the fourth day of his cap- 
tivity, Wawatam appeared on the scene. Before a 
council of chiefs he asked the release of his brother, 
the trader, at the same time laying down presents to 
buy off Avhatever claims any may have thought they 
had on the prisoner. Wawatam's request, or demand 
was granted, and taking Mr. Henry by the hand he 
led him to his own lodge, where he received the ut- 
most kindness. 

A day or two afterwards, fearing an attack of re- 
taliation by the English, the whole body of Indians 
moved from the fort over to our island as a place of 
greater safety. They landed, three hundred and fifty 
fighting men. Wawatam Avas among them, with 
Henry in safe keeping. Several days had passed, 
when two large canoes from ]\rontreal, with English 
goods aboard, were seized by the Indians. The in- 
voice of goods contained among other things, a large 
stock of liquor, and soon mad drunkenness prevailed. 
The watchful and faithful Wawatam told Henry he 
feared he could not protect him when the Indians 
were in liquor, and besides, as he frankly confessed, 
'"' he could not himself resist the temptation of joining 
his comrades in the debauch." He therefore took 
him up the hill and back in the woods, and hid him 
in a cave, where he was to remain hidden '' until the 
liquor sliould be drank." After an uncomfortable 
and unrestful night, Henry discovered next morning. 



ALEXAXUEll llENKY 37 

to his horror, that he had hocn lying on a heap of 
human hones and sknlls. This chavnel-honse retreat 
is now the well-known " Shnll Cave " of the Island, 
one of the regular stopping places of the tonrists' 
earriaaes. 




ALEXANDER HENRY, 



But we cannot follow trader Henry's fortunes far- 
ther. In a relation hetween guest and prisoner, and 
generally treated with respect, moving with the hand 
from one place to another, following the occupation 
of a hunter, and taking up with Indian life and al- 
most fascinated hy it, lie at length finds himself at the 
Sault, where soon an opportunity opened for his de- 



38 EARLY MACKI^taC 

liverance and ln>^ return home. Subsequently he 
made another trip to the country of the upper lakes 
and remained for a longer time. Of his good friend 
Wawatam, it is a sad tradition that he afterwards 
became blind and was accidentally burned in his 
lodge on the island at the Point, formerly known as 
Ottawa Point, in the village, then as Biddle's, and 
more recently as Anthony's Point. 

It may be that some have felt incredulous in re- 
spect to Henry's thrilling tale. But there is reason 
to think it entirely trustworthy. It is contained in a 
book which he wrote, entitled '^ Travels and Adven- 
tures in Canada and the Indian Territories, between 
1760 and 1776." It was first published in 1809, 
and is dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, '' Baronet of 
His Majesty's Privy Council and President of the 
Eoyal Society." It is a book of thrilling interest. 
It has long been out of print, and copies of it to-day 
are very rare and command a high price. Mr. Hen- 
ry's residence in his latter years was at Montreal, and 
he was still living as late as 1811, an old man past 
eighty years of age, hale and cheerful looking. He 
bore a good name and an unquestioned reputation 
for veracity among those who knew him. I have 
already named him the Herodotus of this particular 
period of history. By another person, an enthusi- 
astic English visitor at Mackinac, over sixty years 
ago, he was called also the Ulysses of these parts ; 
and of his book it was said it bore the relation to 
the Michilimackinac shores and waters which the 
Odyssey does to the shores of Sicily.^ 

1 The chronological order in which early travelers and vis- 
itors, who have left any annals of their journeys, came to this 



ALEXANDER HENRY 39 

region, may be stated as follows: Niccollet, in 1G34; Mar- 
quette, 1071; LaSalle and Hennepin, 1679; LaHontan, 1688; 
Charlevoix", 1721; Alexander Henry, 1762; Capt. John Carver, 
1766. 



CHAPTER III 

The victory of the Indians over at the old fort 
on the Soutliern mainland was nothing beyond a 
shocking and atrocions massacre. It was ntterly 
barren as regards any permanent results, and the 
status of supremacy was not changed. The stock- 
ade had not been destroyed, and British troops soon 
came and resumed possession. Subsequently, how- 
ever, the question of transferring the military seat 
of the !AIichilimackinac region across the Straits to 
our island came up, and was duly considered. ^AFajor 
Sinclair made a careful preliminary examination. 
In a letter written in October, 1799, he says: ^' I em- 
ployed three days from sun to sun in examining the 
Island of Mackinac, on which I found great quan- 
tities of excellent oak, elm, beech and maple, with a 
vein of the largest and finest cedar trees I ever 
saw. . . . The soil is exceedingly fine, with abun- 
dance of limestone. . . . The situation is respecta- 
ble, and convenient for a fort.'' lie also mentions 
that he found on the island " a run of water, suffi- 
cient for a saw mill." 

lie submitted drawings and cuts of the island, 
and plans for fortification, to Gen. Ilaldimand, the 
officer in command of the department, and whose 
headquarters were at Quebec. The superiority of 
the island, as a strong position against Indian at- 
tacks, and Indian threats and insults, was pointed 

40 



CHANGE OF J]ASE 41 

out ; also its advantages in having one of the best 
harbors in tlie npper conntry, and as respects the fish- 
ing interests likewise. It is thonght, too, that the 
transfer was somewhat connected, in the British mind, 
with the American war of the Revolntion, which 
was then in progress. Sinclair spoke of the " liability 
of being attacked by the Eebcls," at the old fort, 
and that the place might " ji^stly be looked npon as 
the object of a separate expedition." As a precau- 
tionary measure, he made every trader take oath of 
allegiance to the king, and to hold in '^ detestation 
and abhorrence the present unnatural and horrid re- 
bellion." At any rate, the garrison did not feel safe 
in a mere stockade of timbers on the mainland. Gen. 
Hal dim and accordingly gave orders for the removal. 
Tiie following letter on the subject was written by 
him, April 16, 1780, to Major DePeyster, formerly 
in command of the old Mackinac fort, but who had 
been transferred, the year before, to the command at 
Detroit.^ 

'' Sir — Having long thought it would be expedi- 
ent to remove the fort, etc., from its present situation 
to the Island of Michilimackinac, and being encour- 
aged in this undertaking by advantages enumerated 
hj Lt. Gov. Sinclair, that must result from it, and 
the earnest desire of the traders, I have given direc- 
tions that necessary preparations, by collecting ma- 

1 Major DePeyster was of American birth, and had served in 
the British army in various parts of this country, besides com- 
manding at Mackinac, and afterwards at Detroit. He held a 
commission for 77 years, and lived to the age of 9G. He spent 
his hitter years in Dumfries, Scotland, the early home of his 
wife. During his residence there, he and the poet Burns were 
great friends. Burns addressed one of his fugitive poems to 
DePeyster. 



42 EARLY :\[ACKrXAC 

terials, etc., be made with as nincli expedition as pos- 
sible, as the strength of that post will admit of. I 
am sure it is unnecessary to recommend to you to 
furnish him every assistance he may require, and 
that Detroit can afford, in forwarding this work, 
farther than by giving you my sanction for the same, 
which I do in the fullest manner." 

A government house and a few other buildings 
were at once erected on the site of the present vil- 
lage ; the old block houses were built, and His Maj- 
esty's troops took possession on the 13th of July, 
1780, Major Sinclair commanding, though the en- 
tire removal was only gradually effected. 

The Indians, as proprietors of the land, had been 
first consulted about this occu]')ancy, and agreement 
and treaty terms were obtained. The consideration 
was £5,000. Two deeds were signed, Avitli their 
mark, by four chiefs, in behalf of themselves and all 
the Chippewas. One was to be lodged with the Gov- 
ernor of Canada, and one to remain at the island ]~)ost ; 
while the chiefs engaged to preserve in their villages 
a belt of wampum seven feet long, to be a memorial 
of the transaction. But it seems that after the work 
was iinder way and the post established, the Indians 
showed discontent, and threatened the troops ; and 
so serious was the hostility manifested, that Sinclair 
sent in great haste to Detroit for cannon. The ves- 
sel was back in eight days, bringing the guns, and 
as soon as she touched on the harbor she fired a 
salute, and that ^^ speaking out " by the cannon's 
mouth at once settled the question, and the poor In- 
dians had no more to say. 

The old site being abandoned (since when it is 



ESTABLISHED OK THE ISLAND 43 

often referred to as '^ Old Mackinaw/') and the gar- 
rison removed, the families of the little settlement, 
conld not do otherwise than follow the fort. Many 
of the houses were taken down and transported piece- 
meal across the straits, and set np again as new 
homes on the island. And hardly were the settlers 
thus re-established before they addressed a petition 
to the government, asking for remuneration to com- 
pensate for the loss and expense incurred, on the 
ground that their removal was in the interest of the 
State and the public welfare. What response was 
made to this petition I have found no record which 
tells. 

The first commandant of the island, Major Sin- 
clair, was also known as Lieutenant Governor. It ap- 
pears that he had been appointed inspector and super- 
intendent of the English forts, and bore some general 
civic position as representative of the government, 
besides his military rank ; also as having charge of 
Indian affairs. Hence he is frequently spoken of in 
the records as Gov. Sinclair, as well as Major. It 
seems to have been on this account, as an officer with 
a more embracing scope, rather than as of higher mil- 
itary rank, that he superseded ]\Iajor DePeyster, in 
command at old Mackinac, in 1770. After the trans- 
fer he remained two years in charge of the new post. 
Sinclair appears, from the style of his letters and re- 
ports, a more cultured and better educated man than 
some of his cotemporaries among the officers of that 
period. But his services as a post commandant and 
general manager of affairs, seem to have been un- 
satisfactory, because of his lavish expenditures, and 
ibuses and neglects in different shapes," 



44 EARLY MACKIXAC 

as it was said. He was continnally being cantioned 
from headquarters in regard to his financial transac- 
tions. For half a century and more, after he left 
the post, the inhabitants continued to talk about his 
extravagance ; and one of the stories long current on 
the island, was that he had paid at the rate of one 
dollar per stump for clearing a cedar swamp in the 
government fields at the west end of the village. It 
subsequently appears that, on his return to England, 
this recklessness in expenditure while on the island 
led to his imprisonment for debt. He speaks him- 
self, in one of his letters, of being '' liberated upon 
jDaying the Michilimakinac bills protested." 

Major, or Governor, Sinclair was succeeded by 
Captain Daniel Robertson, who seems to have been 
in command from 1782 to 1787. This Robertson is 
also called Robinson, and is the one whose name will 
probably be always associated with the island, and 
a figure mark in the guide books and the traditionary 
stories — for when will ^' Robinson's Folly " cease 
to be visited and talked about ? 

The official annals of that time show a gi-eat many 
of Captain Robinson's letters, written while he Avas 
commandant of the post. He seems to have been a 
rough-and-ready, energetic officer ; not very elegant 
in his style of composition or his orthography, pro- 
saic and practical, and perhaps not quite fulfilling 
the sentimental and romantic ideal which some of the 
legends and stories, connecting his name with the 
"Folly," would suggest. In one of his reports of 
this time, a very good plat is given, showing the con- 
tour of the island and the location of the fort, and 
the harbor bearing the name, " Haldimand's Bay," 



KUM 45 

named, presumably, in honor of the English com- 
mander of the province.^ In a letter of April, 1783, 
the. Captain commends the climate of Mackinac as 
'^ preferable to any in Canada, and very healthy ; " 
but he says '^ it is an expensive place." He tells in 
1784 of the wharf being broken to pieces by the ice, 
so that no kind of craft could be loaded or unloaded, 
but that he set men to work and got it in repair. 
He adds: '^ It was a very troublesome job." He 
wants to know, he says, in one of his letters, whether 
or not he is to '^ have any rum ; " and again he says, 
he is at a loss to know how he is to act at this post 
without that liquor, and he is sorry he is ''obliged to 
cringe and borrow rum from traders on account of 
Government." At another time he Avrites, " I have 
had no rum this season, and you know it is the In- 
dian's God." And yet again he pours forth his com- 
plaint: ''Rum is very much Avanted here for various 
purposes, particularly for Indians, and I have had 
only seven barrels this twelve month." 

However, it is but due to the Captain to say that, 
unfortunately, he was not alone in this opinion of 
the indispensableness of rum in the relations of the 
whites and the military with the Indians. We find 
Major Sinclair, his predecessor, as commandant of 
the fort, writing to General Haldimand in 1781, as 
follows : " The Indians cannot be deprived of nearly 
their usual quantity of rum, however destructive it 
is, without creating much discontent." There is a 
sad vein running through all this early history, made 

1 The name was evidently given up after the island changed 
its flag. In the early days, subsequent, it was familiarly des- 
ignated by the island people as " The Basin." 



46 EAELY MACKINAC 

by rum ; first as one of the government supplies to 
the Indians^ and next as an article of tratRc. The 
poor red men facetiously called it '' The English 
j\lilk ; '' but their more serious name for it was tlie 
truer one, '^ Fire water." ^ 

Eobertson (Iiobinson) was in command from 
1782 to 1787. There are intimations of his having 
been disapproved at Gen. Haldimand's headquar- 
ters, and we are told that during those days of Brit- 
ish occupancy, just as in the administration of af- 
fairs since that time in our own western outposts, 
'^ abuses in the Indian department were common." 
Captain Scott was next put in command, '' sent in the 
room of liobertson," as the record reads. This 
change seems to have been for the great improvement 
of the service. An officer sent out from Montreal, 
on an inspection tour, thus reports concerning Scott: 
" I do not believe there is a better man in tlie world, 
or a more zealous good officer of his standing in the 
army. He has gained infinite credit during liis 
command at Mackinac, but, poor fellow, his pocket 
has paid for it. Yet he has convinced the peo])le 
there that it is possible for a connnanding officer to 
be an honest and an honorable man. He will tell 
you wonderful stories of the Indian department in 

1 H. M. Robinson in liis interesting book, " The Great Fur 
Land," descriptive of the regions of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, says of the Indian's liquor, " It must be strong enougli 
to be inflammable, for he always tests it by pouring a few drops 
in the fire." 

" The effects of ardent spirits in the lodge, are equal to the 
appearance of a grizzly bear amongst them." — Schoolcraft. 

" An Indian would barter away all his furs, nay even leave 
himself without a rag to cover his nakedness, in exchange for 
that vile unwholesome stuff called English brandy." — VVillson's, 
'' The Great Company." 



CAPTAI^^ SCOTT 49 

that quarter," Scott was followed in command of 
the post by Cajotain Doyle, who remained in charge 
until its delivery to the United States. 

The fort was not built complete at once, but grad- 
ually took on its dimensions and its strength. In 
1789, after an inspection by the Engineer's Depart- 
ment, the fortifications, as originally designed, were 
reported as being only in part executed, and that 
the work had been discontinued for some years, and 
that in the mean time a strong picketing had been 
erected around the unfinished works. And again, 
as late as 1792, the plans were reported as not yet 
finished ; the officers' stone quarters were only about 
half comj)leted; the walls were up the full height 
and the window frames in, but the roof and floors 
wanting. (Sharp criticism Avas made, too, by the 
officer then inspecting, on the whole design of the 
fort.) And yet again, in 1793, the comnumdant, 
Captain Doyle, writes concerning the ^' ruinous state 
of the fort," but says he purposed '^ sending to the 
saw mill for planks, and would give the Barracks a 
thorough repair, having received orders from His Ex- 
cellency, Maj. Gen. Clarke, to that purpose;" also 
asking for '' an engineer and some artificers to ren- 
der the miserable fortress in some degree tenable." 

Even after its transference to the United States it 
was only by slow degrees brought on to its better 
condition as a fortification. Heriot in his visit to 
the island in 1807 (already referred to) reports 
the fort as '^ consisting of four wooden block-houses, 
. . . the s])ace between being filled up with wooden 
pickets." Again, in 1817, Samuel A. Storrow, who 
had been a judge advocate in the army, visiting Mack- 



50 



EARLY MACKINAC 



inac, describes the fort as '^ a platform enclosed with 
palisades.'' He mentions, as did Heriot, four block- 
houses. It was the same rude and primitive style 
of fortification when first seen by Schoolcraft in 
1820. It was still, however, in the early period of 
the century that the fort took on its present features. 
Its lines have been somewhat changed and much of 




VIEW FROM THE FORT. 



the stone work has been built since the British 
founded it in 1780. The block-houses now stand- 
ing are the originals ; and within the memory of all 
but a very few of the oldest inhabitants there have 
been but the three we now see. The fourth one Avas 
near the southeast corner, perhaps on the spot of the 
old gun-platform on which for so many years stood 
the two cannon which used to give the morning and 



A^^TIQUE STYLE OF THE FORT 51 

evening salute in the days when the fort grounds were 
a garrison post. Another and much steeper ])ath 
than the 2:>resent one then led up tlie hillside. There 
was a very good well within the inclosure. This well 
and also a Powder Magazine were near the east Sally- 
Port and the present Quartermaster's building. 

In its inception and planting it is a military 
structure of a century ago, and w^ith scarcely a feature 
to make it a fort of to-day's construction. It is a 
memento of the past and is replete in historic rem- 
iniscence. As a fortification, it is a curious mixture 
of American frontier post and old-world castle. Its 
tliick walls and sally-])orts, and bastions and ditch, its 
old block-houses of logs, loop-holed for musketry, its 
sloping path dowm to the village street buttressed 
alono- the hillside with heavv masonrv, above which 
grow grass and cedars uj) to the foot of the overlook- 
ing old '^ officer's quarters " — all this makes it a 
striking and picturesque object, a sort of mountain 
fortress, and certainly something unique in this 
country. 



CHAPTER IV 

The war of the revolution had been fought and 
American independence acknowledged. But al- 
though the treaty of Paris in 1783 had secured all 
this upper lake country on the same general boundary 
lines as they run to-day, and Great Britain had stip- 
ulated that her troops should withdraw with all con- 
venient speed, yet it was thirteen years afterward 
before the island came under our jurisdiction, and be- 
fore the nation's flag floated over the fort. It was 
the same in respect to four or five other military posts 
situated on the American side of the lakes. Wash- 
ington, at the time President of the United States, 
had promptly sent Baron Steuben to Montreal to re- 
ceive the forts from General Ilaldimand according 
to the treaty stipulations, but Ilaldimand replied he 
had no instructions from his government to make 
the delivery, and that he could not even discuss the 
subject. General Knox was sent on the same errand 
in 1784 and likewise Col. Hull, but without accom- 
plishing the object. The Government, by John 
Adams, our minister to England, insisted on the 
same, but to no effect. 

Great Britain urged in explanation of her refusal 
the imperfect fulfillment on tlie American side of cer- 
tain of the treaty stipulations. Some of the States 
of the Union had passed resolutions staying proceed- 
ings at law for all debts due to English creditors ; and 

52 



DELAY I¥ rULFILLT^^G TEEATY 5:] 

some had taken action relative to tliose citizens who 
dnring tlie strnggie had adhered to tlie mother conn- 
try, and who had been known as Tories — action 
which was regarded by Great Britain as contrary to 
the treaty. Snch gronnds were made the plea for re- 
taining these border posts. Onr government re- 
sponded that Congress had done all that lay within 
its power Avhen it earnestly recommended to the 
States concerned, the repeal of all enactments which 
might conflict Avith the reqnirements of the treaty.^ 

It was understood that Great Britain was loth to 
surrender this territory which, by reason of the ex- 
tensive fnr trade it afforded, was sure to become of 
great commercial importance. It is probable, too, a 
lingering belief that the experimental young Repub- 
lic was not destined to a long career, and that there 
might soon come opportunity of renewing English 
dominion, made an element in the policy of delay. 

N^egotiations were pending for a long time, and 
it required another treaty (this question however be- 
ing only one of the many points embraced) before 
the tardy transfer of these posts was effected. It 
was called the '' Treaty of Amity, Commerce and 
Navigation " and Avas secured under the hand of the 
American plenipotentiary, John Jay. By that 
treaty, it was stipulated that on June 1st, 179G, 
the forts should be evacuated by the British and 
turned over to the United States. Owing to delays 
on the part of Congress, our occupation of the posts 
Avas deferred beyond that date. As Washington 
said in his address to Congress, December, 179G: 

1 Whitelock's Life of Jay. Life and works of John Adams, 
vol. 8j p. 355. 



54 EAELY MACKINAC 

'' The i^eriod during tlie late session, at which 
the appropriation was past for carrying into effect 
the treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, be- 
tween the United States and His Britannic Majesty, 
necessarily procrastinated the reception of the posts 
stipulated to be delivered, beyond the date assigned 
for that event." He adds : '' As soon, however, as 
the Governor General of Canada could be addressed 
with propriety on the subject, arrangements were cor- 
dially and promptly concluded for their evacuation, 
and the United States took possession of them, com- 
prehending Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimack- 
inac and Ut. Miami." ^ 

All the others of these frontier posts were deliv- 
ered over at, or near, the date prescribed — in the 
months of June and July. But in the case of Fort 
Mackinac, it was not until October 2nd of that year 
that the actual transfer was made. This date shows 
that the last act in the Avar of the American revolu- 
tion, and the final scene and seal of its triumph, is 
connected with our Island.^ 

But, besides negotiating with the English in the 
recovery of Mackinac, the American government had 
to deal with another class of proprietors — the origi- 
nal possessors of the soil. Accordingly, while the 
delivery of the island and post was still pending. Gen. 
Wayne's treaty with the Indians (Treaty of Green- 
ville), was made in August, 1795, by which ^' a tract 

1 American State Papers. 

2 The Tablet, which tlie City of Detroit, Mich., at its Cen- 
tennial celebration a few years since placed in the wall of the 
Government building, commemorating the delivery of the fort 
at that place, July 11, 17i)G, and which describes the evacua- 
tion as the " closing act of the war of independence," needs 
some modification. 



NEGOTIATrON WITH THE INDIANS 55 

of land was ceded on tlie main, to the north of the 
island on which the post of ^lichiliniackinac stands, 
to measnre six miles on Lakes llnron and Michigan, 
and to extend three miles hack from the waters of 
the lake on the strait." ^ Bois Blanc, or White Wood 
Island, was also ceded as the volnntary gift of the 
Chippewas. The Indians were to receive $8,000 
annnally, besides $20,000 then distributed. 

Perhaps the unfinished state of the post, as re- 
ported in 1792, and the complaint made of its condi- 
tion in 1793, and its sore need of repairs (referred to 
above), may be explained on the ground that the Eng- 
lish authorities, well knowing it was within American 
lines, and apprehending that it must soon pass out of 
their control, deemed it unwise to incur any large ex- 
penditure on it. In fact, we find Captain Kobert- 
son saying in a letter, as early as 1784, that in com- 
pliance with orders he had received, no more labor 
was given to a jDOst Avhich by treaty had been ceded 
to the Americans, than was necessary to " command 
some respect for the safety of the garrison and trad- 
ers, surrounded as I am by a great number of In- 
dians not in the best humor." It is probable, there- 
fore, that when at length it came into our hands it 
was in need of considerable attention, for we find 
Washington, in the same address to Congress just 
quoted from, saying of these posts that '' such repairs 
and additions had been ordered as appeared indis- 
pensable." ^ It is also probable that the American 
force sent to occupy the post at the departure of the 
British soldiers was quite imposing, as we have Tim- 

1 Holmes' American Annals, vol. 2, p. 402. 

2 American State Papers. 



56 EARLY MACKINAC 

otby Pickering, Washington's Secretary of War, in 
his report of Febrnary, 179(5, saying: '' To appear re- 
spectable in the eyes of our J]ritish neighbors, the 
force with which we take possession of these posts 
should not be materially less than that with which 
they now occupy them. This measure," he adds, 
" is also important in relation to the Indians, on 
whom first impressions may have very beneficial ef- 
fects." ^ Accordingly, the first detachment to occui:)y 
Mackinac, as an American garrison, consisted of four 
ofiicers, one comj^any of Artillery and Engineers, and 
one company of Infantrj^, Major Henry Burback 
being in command of the whole force. The British 
retired to the island of St. Jose])h, on the Canada 
side a little above Detour, and established a fort 
there. 

Following the change of flag and sovereignty, 
nothing very stirring seems to have developed in 
the island history during the years immediately suc- 
ceeding. It soon became, however, a great commer- 
cial seat and emporium in the wilderness. The chief 
commodity Avas furs. Erom an early day this had 
been a business carried on by the individual traders 
Avho went among the Indians. In course of time 
these operations assumed a larger and more sys- 
tematic form under the hands of strong chartered 
companies. Of this I shall speak later. The situ- 
ation of the island in the far northern country, its 
direct comnumication by the great lakes with the re- 
motest parts east, south, west and north, and its be- 
ing the princi])al seat of white habitation and com- 
merce and military authority on the watery highway, 



IMPOKTAA^CE OF THE ISLAND 59 

and the key to the wliole upper country — all this gave 
it an extended reputation in that early day. Travel- 
lers, sometimes from Europe as well as from our own 
eastern states, would touch at the island, visit its fort 
and explore its woods and its natural curiosities even 
as is done now. The fur trade, together with otlier 
lines of traffic which it stimulated, made the island 
for many years a great commercial seat. It is re- 
ported, for instance, for the year 1804, that the goods 
entered at the Mackinac Custom House yielded a rev- 
enue to the United States of about $60,000. 

While at this time our island was United States 
territory, and the fort with its ever floating flag was 
a visible token of its Americanism, the village as a 
whole, with its Indian and French population and 
its style of construction — much of its architecture 
being a kind of cross between the white settler's hut 
and the Indian's birch bark lodge — perhaps did not 
appear so characteristically American. Let us look 
at its picture as dra^vn by Washington Irving in his 
" Astoria." It is Mackinac as seen in 1810. He is 
describing an expedition under way for the far north- 
west and the head waters of the Missouri, in the in- 
terest of Mr. Aster's enterprises. The party had 
fitted out in Montreal, under Wilson P. Hunt, of 
'New Jersey; and in one of the large canoes, thirty 
or forty feet long, universally used in those days in 
the schemes of commerce, had slowly made their way 
up the Ottawa river, and by the old route of the fur 
traders along a succession of small lakes and rivers, 
to our island. Here the party remained about three 
weeks, having stopped for the purpose of taking on 



60 EARLY MACKIXAC 

more 2;ooJs and to eii2:aiie more reeriiits. Irvino; 
thus describes the phice : 

'' It va^ not nntil the 22d of July that they arrived 
at Mackinaw, situated on the island of the same name, 
at the confluence of Lakes LIuron and Michigan. 
This famous old French trading post continued to be 
a rallying point for a multifarious and motley popu- 
lation. The inhabitants Avere amphibious in their 
habits, most of them being or having been voyageurs 
or canoe-men. It was the great place of arrival and 
de23arture of the southwest fur trade. Here the 
Mackinaw Company had established its principal 
post, from whence it communicated with the interior 
and with Montreal. Hence its various traders and 
trappers set out for their respective destinations about 
Lake Superior and its tributary waters, or for the 
Mississippi, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the 
other regions of the west. Here, after the absence of 
a year or more, they returned with their peltries, and 
settled their accounts; the furs rendered in by them 
being transmitted, in canoes, from hence to Mon- 
treal. Mackinaw was, therefore, for a great part of 
the year, very scantily peopled ; but at certain sea- 
sons, the traders arrived from all points, Avith their 
crews of voyageurs, and the place swarmed like a hive. 

^' Mackinaw, at that time, was a mere village, 
stretching along a small bay, with a fine broad beach 
in front of its principal row of houses, and dominated 
by the old fort, which crowned an impending height. 
The beach was a kind of public promenade, where 
were displayed all the vagaries of a seaport on the 
arrival of a fleet from a long cruise. Here voyageurs 
frolicked away their wages, fiddling and dancing in 



WASHINGTON IRVmG'S SKETCH 61 

the booths and cabins, bnving all kinds of knick- 
knacks, dressing themselves ont finely, and parading 
lip and down, like arrant braggarts and coxcombs. 
Sometimes they met with rival coxcombs in the yonng 
Indians from the opposite shore, who would appear 
on the beach, painted and decorated in fantastic 
style, and would saunter up and down, to be gazed 
at and admired, perfectly satisfied that they eclipsed 
their pale-faced competitors. 

" Now and then a chance party of ' Northwesters ' 
appeared at Mackinaw from the rendezvous at Fort 
William. These held themselves up as the chivalry 
of the fur trade. They were men of iron, proof 
against cold weather, hard fare, and perils of all 
kinds. Some would wear the northwest button, and 
a formidable dirk, and assume something of a mili- 
tary air. They generally wore feathers in their 
hats, and affected the ' brave.' ' Je sids un liomme 
clu nord! ' — ' I am a man of the north,' one of these 
swelling felloAvs would exclaim, sticking his arms 
aldmbo and ruffling by the Southwesters, whom he 
regarded with great contempt, as men softened by 
mild climates and the luxurious fare of bread and 
bacon, and whom he stigmatized with the vain-glori- 
ous name of 'pork-eaters.' . . . The little cabarets 
and sutlers' shops along the bay resounded with the 
scraping of fiddles, with snatches of old French 
songs, with Indian whoops and yells." 

But the reader must not think there was no other 
side to the social life of the early ]\Iackinac of that 
period. Irving's picture is only that of the wharves, 
and the floating population, such as the manager of 
a water expedition, stopping over but a little while. 



62 EARLY MACKmAC 

would be tlie most likely to see. Although the resi- 
dent population was very small, there were, at the 
same time, the families of settled homes, and with the 
social interests and sympathies and pleasures common 
to American village life — subject of course to many 
inconveniences and privations incident to their re- 
moteness in a wilderness world. I find a pleasing de- 
scrij^tion written by a lady, who was taken to the is- 
land when a child, in the year 1812, just before the 
war opened, and who spent the years of her girlhood 
there. 

The houses of the village at that time^ she says, 
w^re few, quaint and old. Every house had its gar- 
den enclosed with cedar pickets. These Avere kept 
whitewashed, as also the dwellings and the fort. 
There were but two streets in the village. One ran 
from point to point of the crescent harbor, and as 
near the water's edge as the beach would permit — 
the pebbles forming a border between the w^ater and 
the road. (It will be remembered that the water's 
edge in earlier years was considerably more inland 
than now.) A foot j)ath in the middle was all that 
was needed, as there were no vehicles of any de- 
scrijDtion, except dog-trains or sleds in the winter. 
There were no schools, no physician, and no resident 
minister of religion.^ Occasionally a priest Avould 
come on visitation to the Catholic flock. In winter 
the isolation was complete. Navigation closed usu- 
ally by tlie middle of October, and about eight months 
were passed in seclusion from the outer Avorld. The 

1 Schoolcraft at the time of his first visit to the island, in 
1820, remarked on its need of a preacher, a school-master, an 
attorney, and a physician. " Of merchants," he adds, " there 
are always too many." 



1' M^^^^^^^M^ 




' '" ^^^^^ 


"^B 


4 , ^^^^0I9^H 




5 Jgi%™/>^ ^^Hh^' 


^pr.| 


'^l 1 


S!SHi 


■:W|' Ji^K 


^ W' ^^^K 


^» n 



ANOTHER EARLY DESCRIPTION 65 

mail came once a month '^ when it did not miss." 
There were no amnsements other than parties. The 
children, however, made honses in the snow drifts, 
and coasted down hill. Spring always came late, and 
as it was the cnstom to observe May day they often 
planted the May pole on the ice. Once she records, 
for the Stli of May, '' Ice in the Basin good." She 
relates that in the antnmn of 1823 the ice formed 
very early, bnt owing to high winds and a strong cnr- 
rent it Avould break np over and over, and be tossed 
to and fro, nntil it was piled to a great height in 
clear, towering bine masses ; and all that met the eye 
across to the opposite island were beantifnl monntains 
of ice. The soldiers and fishermen cnt a road 
throngh. This made a winter's highway for the 
dog sleds, the passage winding between high Avails of 
ice, Avith nothing to be seen but the sky above. 
Again, in other seasons, the ice Avould be perfectly 
smooth. The exciting times on the island, she says, 
were Avhen La Caneau du Nord came. As the canoes 
neared the town there would come floating on the air 
the far-famed Canadian boat song. The voyageurs 
landing, the Indians would soon follow and the little 
island seemed to overflow with human life. These 
exciting times Avould last for six or eight weeks. 
" Then would follow the quiet, uneventful, and to 
some, drear}^ tlays, yet to most, days that passed 
happily." ^ 

1 Mrs. H. S. Baird, whose reminiscences of Mackinac were 
published in a Green Bay newspaper, 1882. They are preserved 
in the " Wisconsin llistoi-ical Collections," vol. 1). ^Ir. Gur- 
don Hubbard, identified with the business of the island in those 
early days, and acquainted witli nil its families, says of this 
lady, in his autobio.yraphy (1802-188(5) that she was "highly 
educated and was considered the belle of Mackinaw." 



66 EAKLY MACKINAC 

It is interesting to find the following comment on 
Mackinac written by a visitor in the early period 
now spoken of, and to note his warm appreciation 
of the island then, and his prediction concerning its 
future : '^ Mackinaw is really worth seeing. I think 
it by no means improbable that it will become a place 
of fashionable resort for the summer. There is no 




INDIAN WIGWAM. 

finer sunnuer climate in the world. The purest, 
sweetest air, lake scenery in all its aged and grand 
magnificence and the purest water. . . . No flies and 
no mos(piitoes, nothing to annoy, but every variety for 
the eyes, the taste and the imagination." ^ 

1 Col. McKemiey in 182G — joint Commissioner with Gov- 
ernor Cass in ncjxotiatinii: with tlie Indians. 



CHAPTEH V 

The year 1812 brought onr second war with the 
mother country. In it our little island played a part, 
and indeed it may be said to have '^ opened the ball." 
The very first scene of the war was enacted here. 
The two governments had been under strained rela- 
tions for some time before, and on the 19th of June, 
of that year, the state of war was declared by Presi- 
dent Madison. It was a mystery at the time, and 
something which excited clamor and, in the frenzy 
of the hour, even insinuations of treachery against 
high officials at Washington, that the English com- 
manders in Canada knew the fact so much in advance 
of our own. One explanation is that our very de- 
liberate Secretary of War trusted to the ordinary 
postal medium in connnunicating with the frontier 
troops, while the agents of the English government 
sent the news by special messengers. General Hull, 
commander of the department of Michigan, said he 
did not receive information of the fact until fourteen 
days after w^ar was declared; while General Brock, 
the British commander opposite, had official knowl- 
edge of it four or five days sooner. And likewise 
Lieutenant Hanks, of our island post, was in blissful 
ignorance of the fact, until he saAV the British cannon 
planted in his rear, just four weeks after war had 
been determined upon. 

The English officer. Captain Roberts, commanding 
67 



68 



EARLY MACKIIS^AC 



at the Island of St. Joseph, on the near-by Canada 
border, had received orders immediately to nndertake 
the capture of the strategic point of ]\Iackinac. lie 
gathered a force, consisting of Canadian militia (the 
English Fur Co.'s voyageurs and other employees), 
and a large number of Indians, besides having the reg- 
ular soldiers of the garrison. The expedition was 
admirably managed. An open attack in front would 




WALK-IN-THE- WATER. 
(from an old time wood cut) 
First Steamhoat on the Upper Lakes. Built in 1818. At Mackinac, 
June, 1819. Wrecked near Buffalo, Nov., 1821. Described by 
one of that day as ' ' A weak but elegant boat." 



have been impossible of success. So, secretly sail- 
ing from St. Joseph, they landed, unperceived, on 
the northwest side of the island, at 3 o'clock in the 
morning, on the spot know^n ever since as ^' British 
Landing." The troops had an unobstructed march 
across the island and were soon in position with their 
cannon on the higher ground connnanding the fort 
in the rear, the Indian allies establishing themselves 
in the woods on either flank. 



THE FORT SURPRISED 69 

The American coiiiniandniit iind liis little handful 
of men then learned, at the same moment, the two 
facts, that the United States and Great Britain were 
at war, and that the snrrender of Fort Mackinac was 
demanded. Resistance was impossible, and thus 
again the flag was raised over its walls that had first 
floated there. Pothier, an agent of the Northwest 
Fur Company, who accompanied the expedition and 
commanded a part of the force, thus laconically re- 
ported it to Sir Geo. Prevort : '' The Indian traders 
arrived at St. Joseph witli a number of their men, 
so that we were now enabled to form a force of about 
two hundred and thirty Canadians and three hun- 
dred and twenty Indians, exclusive of the garrison. 
With that force we left St. Joseph on the 16th, at 
eleven o'clock a. m., landing at Michilimackinac at 
three o'clock the next morning, summoned the garri- 
son to surrender at nine o'clock, and marched in at 
eleven " — just twenty-four hours after setting forth 
on their hostile errand. He adds further, that there 
were between two and three hundred other Indian 
w^arriors who had expected to join the expedition, but 
failed; that two days after the capitulation, they 
came. But he intimates that this band was in an 
undecided state of mind and partly inclined to favor 
the Americans. 

Captain Roberts, in his report to General Brock, 
dated the day of the capture (July I7th), says: " We 
embarked with two of the six pounders and 
every man I could muster, and at ten o'clock we were 
under weigh. Arrived at three o'clock a. m. One 
of those unwieldy guns Avas brought up with much 
difficulty to the heights above the fort and in readi- 



10 EARLY MACKINAC 

ness to open about ten o'clock, at wliicli time a sum- 
mons was sent in and a capitulation soon after agreed 
on. I took immediate possession of the fort and dis- 
played the British colors." 

As presenting an American account of the sur- 
2:>rise and capture, the official report of Lieut. Hanks 
is herewith given. It was made to Gen. LIull, his 
commanding ofiicer, and was issued from Detroit, 
whither the officers and men of the captured garrison 
had been sent on parole: 

" Deteoit, August 12th, 1812. 

" Sir — I take the earliest opportunity to acquaint 
Your Excellency of the surrender of the garrison of 
Michilimackinac, under my command^ to His Brit- 
annic ]\Iajesty's forces, under the command of Cap- 
tain Charles Roberts, on the 17th ultimo, the partic- 
ulars of which are as follows: On the 16th, I was 
informed by the Indian interpreter that he had dis- 
covered from an Indian, that the several nations of 
Indians then at St. Joseph (a British garrison, dis- 
tant about forty miles) intended to make an immedi- 
ate attack on ^^lichilimackinac. . . . 

" 1 immediately called a meeting of the American 
gentlemen at that time on the island, in which it was 
thought proper to dispatch a confidential person to 
St. Joseph, to watch the motions of the Indians. 

^' Captain Michael Dousman, of the militia, was 
thought the most suitable for this service. He em- 
barked about sunset, and met the British forces 
Avithin ten or fifteen miles of the island, by whom he 
was made i)risoner and put on his parole of honor. 



LTEUT. HANKS' EEPORT 11 

He was landed on the island at daybreak, with posi- 
tive directions to give me no intelligence whatever. 
He vras also instrncted to take the inhabitants of the 
village, indiscriminately, to a place on the west side 
of the island, where their persons and property shonld 
be protected by a British guard, bnt should they go 
to the fort, they wonld be subject to a general mas- 
sacre by the savages, which wonld be inevitable if 
the garrison fired a gun. This information I re- 
ceived from Dr. I)ay,^ who was passing through 
the village when every person was flying for refuge to 
the enemy. I immediately, upon being informed of 
the approach of the enemy, placed ammunition, etc., 
in the block houses ; ordered every gun charged, and 
made every preparation for action. About nine 
o'clock I could discover that the enemy were in pos- 
session of the heights that commanded the fort, and 
one piece of their artillery directed to the most de- 
fenseless part of the garrison. The Indians at this 
time were to be seen in great numbers in the edge of 
the woods. 

'^ At half past eleven o'clock the enemy sent in a 
flag of truce demanding a surrender of the fort and 
island to His Britannic Majesty's forces.^ This, Sir, 

1 The Post surgeon. 

2 As to tlie difference in the hour which appears in these three 
official statements, it is probable each writer had in mind some 
different stage of the event. The question of the surrender of 
tlie island had its preliminary stage at an earlier hour in the 
morning at the old distillery at the western end of the village, 
between some of the Britisli officers and certain of the citizens, 
while the formal demand on the post was not made until later 
in the day. And, again, Captain Roberts may have noted the 
time of writing his demand at his own headquarters and Lieut. 
Hanks the time it reached his hands. 



72 EARLY MACKINAC 

Avas the first information I had of the declaration of 
war. I, however, had anticipated it, and was as 
well prepared to meet snch an event as I possibly 
conld have been with the force nnder my command, 
amonntinff to fifty-seven effective men, inclndinii; offi- 
cers. Three American gentlemen, Avho were pris- 
oners, were permitted to accompany the flag. From 
them I ascertained the strength of the enemy to be 
from nine hnndred to one thousand strong, consisting 
of regular troops, Canadians and savages ; that they 
had two pieces of artillery, and were provided with 
ladders and ropes for the purpose of scaling the 
works, if necessary.^ After I had obtained this in- 
formation I consulted m}^ officers, and also the Ameri- 
can gentlemen present, who were very intelligent 
men ; the result of wdiich was, that it Avas impossible 
for the garrison to hold out against such a superior 
force. In this opinion I fully concurred, from the 
conviction that it Avas the only measure that could 
prcA^ent a general massacre. The fort and garrison 
Avere accordingly surrendered. 

" In consequence of this unfortunate affair, I beg 
leaA^e, Sir, to demand that a Court of Inquiry may 
be ordered to investigate all the facts connected Avith 
it ; and I do further request, that the Court may be 

1 A discrepancy in the estimate of troops as made by opposing 
sides, especially in reports from the battle field, is ver}^ com- 
mon. A recent History of Canada, however (published in 
1897), is inexcusably out of the way, when it makes Captain 
Roberts' attacking force " less than two hundred," as far as 
voyageurs and regulars were concerned, and makes no mention 
whatever of the large number of Indian allies. 



LIEUT. HANKS' EEPOUT 73 

specially directed to express tlieir ()])liii()n on tlie mer- 
its of the case. 

^' Porter Hanks, 
'' hieuienani of Artillery/' 
'^ His Excellency Gen. Hull, 

'' Commanding the N. 11'. Army/' 

It is not necessary to discnss the qnestion wliether 
the snrrender at Fort Mackinac, Avithont a show of 
resistance, was jnstifiable. The garrison was bnt a 
handfnl of men. By no fanlt of his, the Lieutenant 
in command had been taken entirely nnawares. The 
enemy were in overwhelming numbers and occupying 
a position with their cannon which commanded the 
fort. Their Indian allies were waiting in savage 
eagerness for the attack, and had the fighting once 
begun it would have been beyond the power of the 
officers to restrain them.^ 

The capture of Mackinac, the first stroke of the 
war, was of the highest importance to the British 
interests. Valuable stores of merchandise, as well 
as considerable shipping which stood in the harbor, 
Avere secured. It gave them the key to the fur trade 
of a vast region, and the entire command of the 
upper lakes. It exposed Detroit and all lower ]\Iich- 
igan. It greatly terrified General Hull, who com- 
manded the department of Michigan. It arrested 
his operations in Canada. He said : " The whole 
northern hordes of Indians will be let down upon 

1 John Askin, of tlie British storekoepinj? department, and 
present with the besieging force, said, that had the soldiers of 
the fort fired a gnn, he firmly believed not a soul of them would 
have been saved. 



74 



EARLY MACKI:N^AC 



its/' His surrender, jnst one niontli later, was in 
part due to the jianic it cansed — one historian of 
that day, saving: ''' Ilnll Avas conquered at Macki- 
nac.'' 

On the island, the British proceeded at once to 
strengthen their position. In order to guard against 
any ap])roach in the rear, like the successful one they 
themselves had made, they huilt a very strong eartli- 




THE PERRY CANNON. 



work on the high hill, a half mile, or little more, 
hack of the post, which they called Fort George, in 
lionor of the King of England. Tliis fortification 
still remains, now known to all visitors as Eort 
Holmes. In its construction the citizens of the vil- 
lage were imju-essed, every ahle bodied man being re- 
quired to give three days in tlie pick and shovel 
work. 

A common error prevails that this ancient earth- 
work was actually constructed the very night the 
British arrived, and tliat it made part of the formida- 



CONSTRTTCTING YO\lT HOLMES Y5 

ble investment of Fort jMnekinac wliieli led to its 
s]ieedy snrrender. A moment's reflection will show 
this conld not have been the case. The invadine; 
force only landed at three o'clock that mornincj and 
then, with all their trappings, had to march two 
miles to get into position, and yet were ready by ten 
o'clock to open fire. It is probable this hill was the 
" heights above the fort," to which, as Captain Rob- 
erts says in his report, " one of those nnwieldy gnns 
was bronght wp with mnch difficnlty ; " and that far 
the Fort Holmes' site fignred in the demonstration 
against Lient. Hanks' command. The fortification 
itself, however, being the scientific work of mili- 
tary engineers, and involving a protracted period of 
hard labor, was constrncted afterwards at the Brit- 
ish commandant's leisnre. The other one of Captain 
Roberts' ^' two six-ponnders," together with the 
great bnlk of his men, inclnding his Indians, we 
may snppose, occnpied the ridge of gronnd, part 
open and part wooded, betw^een the hill and the post, 
jnst beyond the old parade gronnd, wdiich lies ontside 
the present fort fence. 

Captain Roberts was relieved, September, 1813, 
and Captain Bnllock appointed in his place. Col. 
McDonall assnmed charge in the spring of 1814. 
This ofiicer's name often appears as McDonall. 



CHAPTER VI 

By Commodore Perry's victor on Lake Erie, and 
General Harrison's victorious battle of the Thames, 
the autumn of 1813 found the Americans in posses- 
sion of Lake LIuron, and nearly all of Michigan. 
The re-capture of Mackinac was determined on. In 
the early spring of 1814, an expedition for this pur- 
pose was planned, which, however, did not get under 
sail until July 3rd, embarking from Detroit that 
day. It w^as a joint naval and military force. 
There were seven war vessels under Commodore Sin- 
clair, and a land force of 750 men, under command 
of Col. Croghan. The object, besides the retaking 
of ]\Lnckinac, was also to destroy the English post 
at St. Joseph, and to inflict whatever damage it could 
on the military stores and shipping of the enemy 
on the neiii'liborins: border of Canada. These war 
brigs and other vessels of the squadron were the larg- 
est ever seen, up to that time, on the waters of St. 
Clair and Huron. Tlie connnanders, instead of sail- 
ing at once to Mackinac, concluded to first dispatch 
their other errands. They found St. Joseph already 
abandoned by the British, but they captured some 
English schooners and other property, and continued 
their incursion as far as the Sault where they de- 
stroyed a large amount of supplies — ^Lijor Holmes 
being in charge of the expedition. They then turned 
back for Mackinac. 

76 



REmrORCING THE POST 17 

The English fully apj^reciatecl the great value, 
strategically and commercially, of Mackinac, and 
Avere determined to hold it. They took strong meas- 
ures for its defense. Col. McDouall, who had been 
sent there in ]\[ay of that year as the new comman- 
dant, was a very energetic and skillful soldier. He 
brought with him fresh troops from Canada, ammu- 
nition and provisions, and other things needful. Be- 
sides this fact, the garrison were by no means ig- 
norant of the expedition in these northern waters, 
and of its object ; and there was no possibility of a 
sur])rise attack. One of the officers belonging to the 
reinforcement which had been sent to the post thus 
wrote : '' After our arrival at the island all hands 
were employed strengthening the defences of the fort. 
For u])wards of two months half the garrison watched 
at niglit against attack." The Indians from the sur- 
rounding country, and Canadians here and ther(\ 
were called in for aid. Besides the additional fort 
Avhicli they had built. Fort George (now Fort Holmes, 
and already referred to), batteries Avere placed at 
various points outside the Avails Avhich commanded 
the ajiproaches to the beach. One Avas on the height 
overlooking the ground in front of the present Grand 
Hotel, another on the high knoll just Avest of the fort, 
Avhile others lined the east bluff betAveen the present 
fort grounds and Robinson's Folly. 

Our American officers at first thought of erecting 
a battery on Round Island and shelling the fort from 
there. A A^aAvl Avas sent Avith a squad of men to 
reconnoitre, and a spot fixed upon. This Avas seen 
by the English connnander and he immediately sent 
over a large detachment of Indians, Avho forced the 



78 EARLY MACKINAC 

little party to Hee. One of the men, however, waited 
too long, tempted by the berries which grew at his 
feet, and missed the boat and was captured. The 
Indians rowed in with their prisoner, chanting the 
death dirge and expecting to dispose of him on the 
shore in their usual barbaric manner ; and in their 
wild frenzy of delight, some of the squaws, before 
the canoe had touched the beach, rushed into the 
water, waist deep, with whetted knives raised aloft, 
to begin at once the work of savage torturing. But 
the officer of the fort, divining their object, had sent 
a squad of soldiers to protect the hapless prisoner. 

The extended level ground just west of the village 
streets was also considered as a point where a landing 
could be made^ and the taking of the fort be at- 
temj^ted, under cover of the guns of the vessels. But 
Captain Sinclair, who described the fort hill as a 
'' perfect Gibraltar," found that his vessels would 
only be exjoosed to a raking fire from the heights 
above without his being able to elevate his guns suf- 
ficiently for return shots. 

After hovering about the island for a Aveek it was 
concluded there was no other way than to imitate 
the i)lan of the successful enemy, two years before. 
So they sailed around to ^' British Landing " and dis- 
embarked, August 4th, and marched as far as the 
Dousman farm (now Early's farm). But the condi- 
tions were entirely different from those of two years 
ago, and the movement was ill-starred, and a melan- 
choly failure. According, however, to the reports 
made by the joint commanders of the expedition, it 
was not so much their plan to attempt the storming 
of the works, as to feel the enemy's strength and to es- 



FATLURE OF THE ATTACK 7U 

tablisli a lodgment from which by slow and gradnal 
approaches, and by siege, they might hope for success. 
All such expectations were soon dissipated. Facing 
the open field on the Dousman farm were the thick 
woods. This Avas a perfect cover to the Indian skir- 
mishers, who, concealed in their vantage points, hotly 
attacked our soldiers; to say nothing of an English 
battery of four pieces, firing shot and shells. There 
could be neither advance nor encamping. The only 
wise thing Avas to retreat to the vessels. This Avas 
done and the expedition left the island, having lost 
fifteen killed and about fifty wounded. Major An- 
droAV Hunter Holmes, next in connnand to Colonel 
Croghan, Avas one of the slain in this most unfor- 
tunate and fruitless action. He fell Avhile leading 
his battalion in a flank moA^ement on the right. One 
story is that the gun Avliich pierced his breast Avitli two 
balls Avas fired by a little Indian boy. Another tra- 
dition is that the Major had been Avarned that morn- 
ing, by a civilian aboard the vessel, not to Avear his 
uniform, Avhich Avould make him a target, but that 
he declined the friendly advice saying, that if it Avas 
his day to fall he was ready. ^ 

Major Holmes was a Virginian, an intelligent and 
promising young officer who enjoyed the friendshi]) 
of Thomas Jefferson. He had already distinguished 
himself in a battle near Detroit, and had performed 
Avell a special service assigned him in this same expe- 
dition, Avhen at the Sault St. Marie. In the official 
reports of the Mackinac battle he Avas referred to as 
that '' gallant officer, Major Holmes, Avhose character 
is so Avell knoAvn to the Avar department ; " and again 

1 Charles J. Ingersoll in " Sketch of tJic Second War,-' vol. 2, 



80 EAKLY MACKINAC 

as ^' the valuable and ever-to-be lamented officer." 
His bodv had been carried off the field and secreted 
by a faithful negro servant, and the next day was 
respectfully delivered to the Americans by Colonel 
McDouall and taken to Detroit for burial. A very 
fitting tribute to his memory was it, that when in the 
following year the island again came under our flag, 
the name of the new fort on the summit heights, 
which had been built by the English, w^as changed 
from Fort George to Fort Holmes. 

The fort being found impregnable by assault, no 
further attempts at capture were made, and the expe- 
dition returned down the lake to Detroit, the most of 
the soldiers being sent to join General Brown's forces 
on the Niagara. 

But the ambition to regain the island was uot yet 
abandoned. It was thought to starve out the garriscm 
and thus force a surrender. English supplies could 
now come only from Canada through the Georgian 
Bay. Near the mouth of the Nottawasaga river at 
the southeast corner of that bay, under a protecting 
block house, was the schooner '^ Xancy " loaded Avitli 
six months' supplies of provisions intended for the 
Mackinac fort. A detachment of the American 
troops landing there blew up the block house and de- 
stroyed the schooner and her supplies. There re- 
mained now nothing more to do than to so guard the 
waters that the destitution of the island could not be 
repaired. Two of the vessels, the ^' Tigress " and the 
'^ Scorpion," were left to maintain a strict blockade. 
This was proving very effective, and provisions ran 
so low in Mackinac, that a loaf of bread would sell 



SCARCITY OF PKOVKSLOXS 81 

for a dollar on the streets, and the men of the gar- 
rison were killing horses for meat. 

The following extract from a letter written by one 
of the English officers depicts the sitnation wdthin 
the fort at this time : '^ After the failnre of the at- 
tackj the Americans established a blockade by whicb 
they intercepted onr snpplies. We had bnt a small 
st(n'e of provisions. The commander grew very anx- 
ious. The garrison was put on short allowances. 
Some horses that happened to be on the island Avere 
killed and salted down, and we occasionally were 
successful in procuring ilsh from the lake. To econo- 
mize our means the greater part of the Indians were 
induced to depart to their homes. At length we saw 
ourselves on the verge of starvation Avith no hope of 
relief from any quarter." 

During all the sunnner Ave find Colonel McDouall 
in his letters to the department begging and entreat- 
ing for supplies. 

There Avere yet other embarrassments. Although 
throughout the Avliole ])eriod the Indians of the ^lack- 
inac region Avere allies of the British, the alliance 
Avas not Avithout its difficulties. Many of them 
shoAA^ed an indecision Avlien success Avas doubtful, as 
one of the English agents wrote, and '^ a predilection 
in faA^or of the Americans seemed to influence them.'^ 
About the island ^^ they became very clamorous," an- 
other officer said. And CoL McDouall spoke of them 
as ^^ an uncertain quantity " — that they " Avere fickle 
as the Avind and it Avas a difficult task to keep them 
Avitli us." lie Avas embarrassed, too, by their flocking 
to the island and requiring to be fed. 



82 EARLY MACKHSTAC 

But relief, and that by their own sagacity and 
daring, was at hand for the beleaguered garrison. 
When the ^' N"ancy " and the block house on the Not- 
tawasaga were destroyed, the officer in charge of that 
supply of stores, Lieut. Worsley, with seventeen 
sailors of the Royal Xavy, had managed to escape 
and effect a passage in an open boat to the fort at 
Mackinac and had reported the loss of the stores. 
Forced by the necessity of the situation, a bold and 
desperate project was undertaken — that was, the 
capture of the two blockading vessels. Eatteaux 
were fitted out and equipped at Mackinac, manned 
under Lieut. Worsley with his seamen and by volun- 
teers from the garrison and Indians, making in all 
about seventy men. These set forth on the bold 
errand. The Scorpion and Tigress were then cruis- 
ing in the neighborhood of Detour. On a dark night, 
rowing rapidly and in silence, they approached first 
the Tigress, which lay at anchor off St. Joseph, and 
taking it entirely by surjirise, leaped aboard and 
after a hand to hand struggle soon had possession. 
Its crew were sent next day, as prisoners to Mackinac. 
The Tigress's signals were in the hands of the captors, 
and the American pennant was kept flying at the 
mast-head. On the second day after, the Scorpion 
was seen beating up towards her companion ship un- 
aware of its change of fortune. Night coming on she 
anchored some two miles off. About daylight the 
Tigress set all sail, sw^ept dowai on her, oi)eued fire 
and boarded and captured her. Sad fate, indeed, for 
these two war vessels, Avhich only a year before had 
honorably figured in Commodore Perry's victory on 
Lake Erie. I prefer not to dwell on the mortifying 



BRITISH APPKECIATION 83 

bit of history, except to say that candor and jnstice 
compel onr highest admiration for this English feat 
of daring and prowess. 

This ended all attempts to dislodge the English 
from onr ishmd. It remained nnder their flag nntil 
terms of peace and settlement were secured by the 
treaty of Ghent, February, 1815. Mackinac was 
ever a favorite point in the eyes of the British, and 
all along an object of their strong desire; and they 
were loath to give it up. Col. McDouall, the able 
and successful commandant, spoke with strong feel- 
ing of tlie '' unfortunate cession of the fort and the 
island of Michilimackinac to the United States." It 
had been a matter of otficial complaint and criticism 
in the province of Upper Canada, that after the first 
war it had been '^ injudiciously ceded " by the Eng- 
lish government. John Jay, our American repre- 
sentative in the conference of the treaty and the 
boundary lines, found that the commissioners of 
the Crown were more interested in an ^' extended 
commerce than in the possession of a vast tract of 
wilderness." The fur trade of that time was the 
nuiin thing and Mackinac was the gateway to all the 
fur traffic of the west and southw^est fields. And 
again, it appears in negotiating the treaty of 1815 
that the commissioners of the crown, even when feel- 
ing obliged to forego a large part of their demands, 
still held out for the island of jMackinac (and Eort 
^N'iagara) as long as possible.^ Thirty-two years had 
now passed since the American right to the island 
had been acknowledged by the treaty of 1783. Of 
these years only three had been years of war. But 

1 Henry Adams' " History of the United States," vol. 9, p. 34. 



84 EAELY MACKINAC 

for one-lialf of that whole period the British flag had 
been flying over Fort Mackinac. In the complete 
sense, therefore, tlie destiny of the northwest was 
not assnred nntil the treaty of Ghent. ^ With that 
treaty the qnestion Avas finally and conclnsively 
settled. 

The posts of the English which had been captured 




AMERICAN FUR CO. OLD SCALES. 

by ns, and onrs here and there, which they had taken, 
were to be restored by each government to the other. 
In connection with this mntnal delivery is an inter- 
esting fact mentioned in a private letter which Col- 
onel McDonall wrote to his friend and fellow officer 
of the English army. Captain Bulger. He says that 
ill the equipment of Fort Mackinac, at the time he 
1 Hinsdale's " Old Xorthicest," p. 185. 



HISTOEIC CANNON 85 

was making the transfer, were cannon bearing the 
inscriptions : "' Taken at Saratoga ; " " Taken from 
Lord Cornwallis/' and other snch, and he speaks of 
liis chagrin in being obliged to inchide, in his restora- 
tion of the fort, gnns which told of English defeat 
and humiliation in the Eevolutionary war ; and that 
as an Englishman he felt " a strong temptation to a 
breach of that good faith which in all public treaties 
it is infamy to violate." 

Surely it adds to our antiquarian and patriotic 
interest in the old fort to know that guns, cai)tured 
from Burgoyne and from Cornwallis in the battles 
of the Revolution, once held position on these ram- 
parts. 

We do not know how these honorable trophies 
of the Revolution ever found their way to our remote 
pioneer out-post. We do know, however, that our 
loss of the fort, three years before, exjdains how 
they got back, temporarily, to their former English 
ownership. And now in their alternations of estate, 
after taking part in keeping off American troops 
from the island, and thus, as it v/ere, redeeming them- 
selves in English eyes from the bad fortune inciuuTd 
in our war for independence, they again fell into our 
hands. And we can appreciate Col. McDouall's sense 
of regret at having to give them up. It was the same 
sentiment which Capt. McAfee, in his narrative of 
that war in which he himself had a part, tells us 
was exhibited by some of the British officers when 
by Hull's surrender several brass cannon fell to their 
hands Avhich our forces had captured in the war of the 
Revolution — they '' saluted them with tears." ^ 

1 " History of fhc Lafc War in, the Western Country J' 



86 ExVRLY MACKIXAC 

It is vain to snrmise tlie history of tliose inter- 
esting gnns subsequent to 1S15. How long they re- 
mained at the island post, and whether in time they 
were sent to the smelter's furnace, or are still in hon- 
orable preservation somewhere with other war relies, 
we cannot say. In this connection it may be well to 
remark concerning that old fashicmed cannon Avhieh 
has been lying in position on the village beach in 
front of the '^ fort garden,'' a familiar object for 
generations past. The story is that the gnn figured 
in Com. Perry's battle on Lake Erie, though whether 
one of his own guns in the action or a British gnn 
Avhich he captured is uncertain ; that it Avas left here 
long ago by one of the government revenue vessels. 
That it was put in charge of the Mackinac Custom 
House, and that it used to serve on 4th of July and 
other national occasions which called for celebration 
^^ at the cannon's mouth." 

Although the treaty of Ghent had been made in 
December, ISH, by which the island reverted to 
the United States, yet so long were the dispatches 
in reaching the post, that hostilities were continuing 
in its vicinity for three or four months after peace 
had been declared.^ 

The instructions to IMcDouall Avere that he Avith- 
draAV as soon as possible after July 1st, as occupa- 
tion by the American troops was authorized by the 
15th of that month. The AvithdraAval Avas delayed 
by the difficulty of deciding Avhere to go. The Brit- 
ish officers desired a locality near the boundary line, 
Avhich Avould l)e suitable for a military ]iost and by 

1 Likewise the battle of Xew Orleans was foiinlit nearly a 
month after the treaty of peace had been made. 



BRITISH SEEK A NEW SITE 87 

which, at the same time, they could favorably com- 
pete for control of the route between the upper and 
lower lakes. Added to this was the desire to main- 
tain their hold on the Indians, and to secure all possi- 
ble advantage in the fur commerce. 

While the general boundary line of division, as 
respects the northern end of Lake Huron, had been 
agreed on by the American and British authorities, 
yet in respect to every individual island which bor- 
dered on that line of water, it had not then been 
definitely determined. But time pressed and the 
British authorities were compelled to decide on a 
spot ; and an island, answering well in point of local- 
ity and very suitable in all physical features as a 
place of fortification, and presumably within the 
British line, was chosen. It lies about two miles 
off from Detour of the northern peninsula of Michi- 
gan at the entrance of the St. Mary's river connecting 
with Lake Superior. The Indian name it then bore 
was Pontaganipy. Afterward it became known as 
Drummond island, so called, it is presumed, in honor 
of Sir Gordon Drummond, at that time commander 
of the British forces in Canada. 

Although the place was now determined on, further 
delay was occasioned by the scarcity of boats to effect 
the removal. And in the meantime a detachment 
of American troops under Col. Anthony Butler had 
arrived from Detroit to receive the fort. They came 
with a margin of time in advance of the stipulated 
15th, and went into camp on the level field below the 
fort. The British commandant was obliged to re- 
quest a short extension of time as the transportation 
facilities were not yet complete. This was cour- 



88 EARLY MACKIXAC 

teously accorded, but there is a story to the effect 
that the American officers insisted on nnfiirling the 
stars and stripes over their camp on the ground be- 
low, Avlien the 15tli arrived — the Jjritish still occu- 
pying the fort. 

On the British leaving, Col. Butler took command, 
but soon resigned it to Major Willoiigld:)y Morgan, 
who, within a few months, was succeeded by (yol. 
Chambers. 



CirAPTEP. VII 

The reliDqiiishment of the straits by the British 
troops, and their retirement to Drnmmond Island, 
and establishing a i:»ost there, and the strained rela- 
tions between them and their American neighbors at 
IMackinac — all this forms a passage of some his- 
torical interest not nnmixed with a comic element. 

At Drnnnnond Island Col. McDonall began mili- 
tary fortifications on an extensive plan wdth the fond 
dream of establishing a commanding military and 
connnercial center. The new post Avas only some 
forty miles from Mackinac. The garrisons were men 
of the same blood and langnage. They were neigh- 
bors and each the only near neighbor the other had. 
Peace prevailed between the two flags, and we might 
have thonght of amity and fellowship in that remote 
wilderness of w^ater and forest. But it was not long 
before relations became strained and letters of crim- 
ination and recrimination Avent back and forth. 
One qnestion pertained to the ownership of Pound 
Island, lying just in front of ]\Iackinac — the Ameri- 
can authorities at the post choosing to ignore a deed 
of cession thereof made by the Indians to a certain 
individual of Mackinac village during the recent 
British control. But for the most part the grounds 
of dispute were so trifliug and imaginary that the 
ebullitions of excited feeling seem now almost amus- 
ing. The Indians going back and forth, and seeking 
"^ 89 



90 EARLY MACKINAC 

favors on each island, made miscliiof Avitli their 
tongnes. The white traders, too, in hoth place:^ may 
have fomented tlie strife. A few of the villagers, 
sympathizing more or less with the English canse, 
or having kindred among the Drnmmond people, had 
remained at Mackinac, where tlieir homes and prop- 
erty were. Tales were reported of their being 
wronged, and snbjected to indignities, and their bnsi- 
ness interfered with, and of one person in particnlar, 
the wife of a man who had gone to Drnnnnond, being 
threatened as a ^^ British spy ; " and it was excitedly 
declared that there was '^ more liberty in Algeria than 
at present in Michilimackinac." Col. ]\IcDonall, in- 
flnenced by the exaggerated reports, wrote to the is- 
land anthorities in a protesting and rather offensive 
tone. Pntoff, the Mackinac agent of Indian affairs, 
sent back a hot reply. In langnage emphatic, bnt 
not always elegant, he denied the allegations made of 
any injnstice or indignity having been shown; and in 
reference to the " spy " charge that the party declared 
she had never heard she was thus accnsed, that she 
stands ready '^ to confront yonr informant and," to 
nse her own phraseology, ^ Give him the Lye ! ' " 

The writer then makes connter-charges and claims 
that according to reports bronght by the Indians 
from Eort Drnmmond, Col. McDonall was endeavor- 
ing to interfere with Mackinac trade; that he had 
held a conncil with the Indians, and Avarned them 
against the Americans who proposed inviting them to 
Mackinaw for the pnrpose of secretly massacring 
them ; that '"'' red Avampnm and tobacco mixed with 
Vermillion " (the symbol of war) had been distrib- 
nted ; that barrels of rmn Avere opened to inflame 




LESLIE AVENUE. 



HEATED COPiRESrOA^DEiVCE 93 

their animosity; and they were again urged to grasp 
the tomahawk, and that he himself was purposing 
soon to return with his big guns and recapture Mack- 
inac. 

To this CoL McDouall replies ; in his dignity, 
how^ever, refusing to again communicate with the 
Indian Agent, but addressing his letter to Col. Cham- 
bers, the commandant at the fort. He laughs at 
what he calls '' the absurd stories " of the Indians, 
and the '' precious tissue of abominable lies." He 
denies advising them against American trade. The 
charges that he had warned them against going to 
Mackinac lest they should be entrapped and de- 
stroyed, and had advised them to take up the toma- 
hawdv against the Americans and that he himself was 
planning an attack on their island, were idle tales. 
As to the barrels of rum, not even a glassful had 
been given, '' so economically was the council con- 
ducted," he says. Xo wampum of a red kind or any 
other color had been distributed, nor had there been 
" the most distant allusion which malice could tor- 
ture into the indication of approaching war." And 
the '' minute guns " wdiich had figured as a warlike 
tocsin in the story carried to Mackinac he explained, 
with a glowing British pride, was a royal salute fired 
in honor of the victory of Wellington at Waterloo 
over Xapoleon, '^ the greatest despot that ever waded 
through slaughter to a throne." This Avas in 1815, 
it will be remembered, two or three months after 
Waterloo ; and it is interesting to find that away out 
in the northernmost waters of Lake Huron, remote 
from all otlier seats of habitation, this event in Euro- 



94 EARLY MACKI^^AC 

pcaii history was duly celebrated by the resounding 
guns. 

And so the poor Indians appear for the once as 
practical jokers at the exj)ense of the superior race; 
telling '' cock and bull " stories, now to one island 
and then to the other. There is a blending of the 
comical and pathetic in the thought of these poor chil- 
dren of the forest, so often the football of the whites, 
proving such serious mischief-mongers and stirring 
up so much bad blood between the two bands of their 
conquerors — as it were " playing off one against 
the other." 

We continue this story only to say that the high 
expectations in regard to Drummond Island as a 
British post, influential in Indian affairs and in the 
commerce along the American border, were doomed 
to disappointment. McDouall w^as not allowed to 
develop, except to a very limited extent, his plans of 
military fortifications, nor to realize his fond dream 
of making it a great commercial seat. He remained 
in command only for one year after leaving Macki- 
nac, and returned to England, it is said, a disap- 
pointed man.-^ This disappointment marked the 
subsequent history of Drummond Island as a Brit- 
ish seat. For, some years after settling there the 
joint commissioners conferring concerning a few 
questions which still lingered between Canada and 

1 This British officer commands our respect for his high abil- 
ities. From his published letters he seems to have been a man 
of literary culture, and capacity for state craft as well as mili- 
tary training. He attained tlie rank of INlajor-General, and 
lived until 1848, liaving entered the army in 1796. Kingsford 
in liis " History of Canada'' vol. 8, speaks of him as a " zealous 
and active officer, whose ])erformance of the duties entrusted 
to him has entitled him to the most honorable mention." 



FOKT OFFICERS OF FOKMER DAYS 95 

the United States respecting the division line in the 
island-stndded part of upper Lake Huron and the 
river St. Mary, decided that that part of the lake in 
which Drunmiond Island lay belonged to the United 
States side of the line. Accordingly in 1828 the 
British garrison removed and the island was turned 
over to our government.^ 

To return now to our Island post in the straits. 
The American spirit and regime were soon fully re- 
stored after its re-possession by our troops in 1815. 
From that time on there was a long succession of 
regular army soldiers and officers inhabiting the old 
quarters and barracks. Many of the officers who 
afterwards acquired high rank and distinction during 
our civil war, 1861-1865, either in the Union Army 
or Southern, had been in service here as young Cap- 
tains or Lieutenants. Among them were Gen. Sum- 
ner, Gen. Heintzelman, Gen. Kirby Smith, Gen. Si- 
las Casey, and Gen. Fred Steele, for whom a fort in 
the west has been named. General Pemberton was 
once a member of the garrison, and in a private letter 
written by one of the citizens in 1840, when the little 
island was ice-bound and there was a dearth of news, 
it is incidentally mentioned that " Lieut. Pemberton 
in the fort is engaged in getting up a private theatre, 
in an endeavor to ward off winter and solitude," — 
the young officer little dreaming of that more serious 
drama in which he was to act, twenty-three years 

1 Samuel F. Cook, of Lansing, Mich., lias written a most in- 
terestint; sketch of Drummoncrisland — i^ivinof the story of its 
occupation and final abandonment by the British ; giving also 
some of the fascinating legendary lore which has gathered 
about the spot. The sketch is embellished with numerous pho- 
tographic views. 



96 EAELY MACKINAC 

later, as commander of Vicksburg, with Grant's be- 
sieging army around him. 

During the civil war, all troops being needed at 
the front, the soldiers were withdrawn from our 
fort. This was but temporary, however, and did 
not mean its abandonment.-^ Its flag and a solitary 
Serjeant were left to show that it was still a military 
post of the United States. This faithful soldier re- 
mained at the fort for many years after the war, and 
was known to the visitors as the '^ Old Serjeant." 
For a i^eriod during the w^ar it was made the place of 
confinement of some of the Confederate prisoners, 
principally notable officers wlio had been captured, 
at which time Michigan volunteer troops held it. 

At the close of the war the fort resumed its old 
time service as a garrison post, generally about fifty 
or sixty men of the regular army, with their officers, 
composing the force. A detachment would serve a 
few years, then be transferred and another would 
take its place, to enjoy in its turn the rccui)erative cli- 
mate of the summer^ and to endure the rigors and the 
isolation of the winters. So the old fort continued 
in use, with its morning and evening gun, its stirring 
bugle notes, its daily '' guard mount," its pacing sen- 
try, its drill, its '' inspection days," until 1895. 
Then the sharp and decisive voice of authority called 
'' halt " to the long march of military history in the 
straits of Mackinaw. The United States govern- 
ment, by formal act of Congress, abandoned the fort, 
and gave it over, together with the Xational Park of 

^ Occasionally at other times, also, the oarrisoii Avoiild be tem- 
porarily sent elsewhere, but this never meant the giving up of 
the post. 



THE FORT STXCE THE CIVIL WAR 97 

eleven luuulred acres, to the State of Michigan. 
The fort was dismantled, the old cannon were re- 
moved from the walls, and every soldier withdrawn. 
We do not qnestion tlie fact, that as a fort constructed 
in 23rimitive times it was nnsuited to the days of 
modern warfare; nor the fact that with the nnmerons 
other well equii)ped posts the department is maintain- 
ing for its troops, this old-fashioned one was not an 
absolute necessity. Nor do we qnestion for a mo- 
ment the propriety of making the State of Michigan 
the legatee and successor to this property, if the gen- 
eral government was determined to dispossess itself 
of it. It could not have been more suitably bestowed, 
if it had to pass into other hands. The commission- 
ers, to whose charge it is now connnitted, appreciate 
and will cherish that historic and patriotic interest 
which attaches to the .old fort, and will kee]) the 
grounds intact and carefully guard the buildiugs. 
They will aim likewise to preserve the trees and 
the drives of the park in that natural beauty which 
has so long given them such charm. But while thus 
assured, it is at the same time a matter of deep re- 
<>ret that the national ajovernment should have for- 
saken the island. Eor sentimental reasons alone, 
even had there been no other, the old fort should 
have been retained as a United States post. A mil- 
itary seat which has two hundred years or more of 
history beliind it, is not often to be found in the 
western world. Indeed, with the possible exce})tion 
of Fort Marion, the old Spanish fortification at St. 
.Vugustine, Fla., it is doubtful if there be another 
on this wh(>l(^ contiucnt, which could boast of so long 
a period of contiuuons occupation as old Fort ]\Iich- 



98 EARLY MACKINAC 

ilimackinac, which was estahlished first at St. Tgnace 
in the 17th century, then removed to ohl Mackinaw, 
and since 1780 has been Located on onr island. 

The Legislature of Michigan in the Sjn-ing of 
1897, by formal act made the offer of recession to 
the United States of the old military post with all the 
garrison buildings and all the ground known as the 
Fort and Military reservation ; such transfer to be 
made whenever the War Department should notify 
the commissioners of its readiness to accept the 
tender. This would still leave what is known as 
the Park in the hands of the State of Michigan. 
By reason of the enlargement of the army, and the 
need there will be for additional barracks and cpiar- 
ters for our soldiers, and because of the eminent fit- 
ness and suitability of the Island for an army post it 
is thought the U. S. Government may incline to this 
offer, and that the old historic fort may again be oc- 
cupied. 



CHAPTEE VIII 



It is interesting to think of the progressive series 
of industries, as pertaining to the welfare of man, in 
connection with the vast stretches of land in our Kew 
America. First of all was the hunting and trapping 

of the wild ani- _ _ 

mals of the wilder- 
ness. Their flesh 
served the early 
aborigines of the 
forest for food, 
and their skins for 
clothing. But the 
Indians' operations 
of this kind w^ere 
but a slight and 
insignificant pre- 
lude to what de- 
veloped with the 
coming of the 
whites, particu- 
larly in our north- 
ern and western 
wilds. With their 

advent the great fur trade began. The forests and 
the soil of these millions of acres were of importance 
airs and roaming grounds of those 
arge and small, which for 
99 




only as being the 
fur-bearing creatures. 



THE SHORE DRIVE. 



100 EAELY MACKINAC 

nearly two centuries made a great element in the 
Avorkl's commerce. Only the slightest part of the im- 
mense captures was availed of for food. The skins 
of the animals were the sole object sought. For 
these, great companies organized and wrought and de- 
veloped into well nigh imperial power in the wilder- 
ness tracts. 

Following this era the forests themselves, so long 
the homes of the animals and the scene of their 
slaughter, became a most valuable element in our 
western settlements by the development of the lumber 
trade, connecting with human habitations and a 
higher form of social life. Then the soil itself, 
which for centuries had been covered by these dense 
forests, served another end in the interest of man by 
its trees giving Avay to the plow. The last form of in- 
dustrial development in connection with the land has 
to do Avith '' the earth beneath." The fur-bearing 
animals to a great extent gone, the forests largely a 
thing of the past, the surface of the earth occupied 
and tilled, the enterprise of man delves below and 
brings up the long hidden treasures of ore and coal 
and oil which prove such mighty factors in modern 
civilization. 

The fur trade was a pioneer industry in [N'orth 
America. Its agents were the first to penetrate the 
primeval wilderness in the name of comnu'rce, and in 
this sense were the precursors of civilization. They 
made distant and perilous journeys, and were often 
the hrst to reveal some solitary river or lake or new 
stretch of land. Their cam])S and petty f<u'ts became 
the outposts of colonizers, and to tlicMii is largely due 
tile earlier opening t(> the (•i\'ili/(Ml woi'ld of the un- 



PIONEEK FUH TRADE 101 

known and inlinspitable '^ regions beyond." Tlie liis- 
torv of the fnr trade ia tlms the history of ex))loration 
and ocen])atioii, with its own lieroes and adventnres 
and annals. l]y atimnlating hunting and tnrning 
it into a sort of forest labor it served to create an in- 
dnstry among the Indians, thongli at the same time 
it diminished the animals npon which the tribes de- 
pended for snbsistence and, most nnfortnnately, in- 
trodnced among them the evil of ardent spirits. 

The conntries of Enrope, together with onr sea- 
board states, were the market fields, and from the 
Avhole vast regions of onr Northwest, whence now 
go the cargoes of grain, there then '' went east," in 
the line of commerce, only the packs of peltry. The 
animals that were hnnted for their fnr were princi- 
pally the following (as far at least as the more north- 
ern fields were concerned), the order in which they 
are named indicating the relative amonnt of snpply 
by the varions species: beaver, marten (sable), mnsk- 
rat, lynx, fox, otter, wolf, bear, mink, deer, bnffalo 
and racoon. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, writing 
concerning the fnr trade in the British possessions 
of the Northwest, and probably speaking only for 
the one company which he represented (the North- 
western) reported for one year the nnmber of fnrred 
animals taken as 182,000, of which 100,000 were 
beavers. 

While fnr-trading in America was practiced to 
some extent in the early days of the Dntch on the 
Hndson, its magnitnde of operations, its longer con- 
tinnance, its inflnence on governments and on civil- 
ization, and its romance Avithal, belong rather to the 
bnsiness as condncted in the western half of North 



102 EARLY MACMvINAC 

America — more pnrticnlarly in the Xortliern and 
Xorthwestern i);irts. i'roni the earliest settlements 
of the Frencli in Canada the fnr trade- ranked as of 
first importance. '' ]5eaver skins were the life of 
Xew Prance," it was said. Ihit the greatest devel- 
ojmient of the business was at the hands of the Hud- 
son's Bay Company ; a company chartered by King 
Charles II. in 1070, and which in process of time 
acquired a fur trade territory more than half as 
large as all Europe, extending from the Arctic Circle 
to the Red River on the South, and west to the Pa- 
cific Coast. While their territory was afterwards 
sold and transferred to the Dominion of Canada,^ yet 
tlie Company as a business corporation has existed 
for fully two centuries and still continues its o]iera- 
tions, and is perhaps the earliest link now left con- 
necting business interests of to-day with the remote 
past. Eor more than a century the great Company 
had flourished without much competition. Then a 
formidable rivalry developed. About 1787, the 
Xorthwest Fur Company took shape, and became a 
very powerful organization, '^ the mighty Xorth- 
Avesters " its people were called. Washington Irving 
Avrote of it : " It held a lordly sway over the wintry 
lakes and boundless forests of the Canadas, almost 
equal to that of the East India Company over the 
realms of the Orient." ^ 

The principal partners resided in Montreal and 
Quebec, and constituted a commercial aristocracy, 
and in their relation to the various grades of the 

1 This was in ISO!), wlieii thoir lerritory of 2,300,000 square 
miles was traiisfcncd to tlio Canadian Government. 

2 Astoria, Chapter 1. 



THE NORTHWEST FVJl (X)MPA^^Y 103 

Innidreds in tlieir eiii])l()y, the old feudal and iiof 
idea seemed restored. Every year a delegation of 
these magnates wonld jonrney to their wilderness 
headqnarters at Eort William, on the north shore of 
Lake Snperior, where a conference was hehl with the 
inferior partners and agents from the varions ontly- 
ing trading posts. They travelled in large palatial 
canoes eqnipped with every ccmvenience and Inxnry 
possible, taking with them their own cooks and 
bakers, and delicacies of every kind. With bnsiness 
they combined pleasnre in their sojonrn at Eort Wil- 
liam, and in the halls of the Conncil honse regaled 
themselves with baiiqnets and revels.^ 

Besides having the territory of the Canadas for 
its operations, the new company stretched its lines 
indefinitely to regions beyond and, as was inevitable, 
when reaching the border lands they clashed in trade 
jealousy with the Hudson's Bay Co. The mu- 
tual strife and animosity were very bitter and long 
continued. Eemoved far beyond the reach of civili- 
zation they were a law unto themselves, and deeds 
of violence and slaughter were common. The North- 
west Company in time extended its operations into 
United States territory. Indeed, up to the begin- 
ning of the 19th century the whole of the fur trade 
in America, with the exception of that of the Russians 
in Alaska, was a British monopoly. We have already 
seen how slowly and reluctantly the treaty of 1783, 
as respects these northern latitudes, was recognized 
by the British Government. British traders pre- 

1 " The opulence of the Lake Superior fur trade in the closing 
flays of the 18th Century can be compared with the opulence 
of the Lake Superior copper trade in the closing days of the 
19th Century." ]\Ioore's " The Northiresf Under Three Flags." 



104 EARLY MACKIXAC 

tended to regard all this country as still in some 
sense belonging to the throne, or at least that the 
boundary question was an open one ; and as the con- 
flict of 1812 was approaching they used to tell the 
Indians that that war Avould settle it. The war did 
settle it, but not as thej^ had imagined. The new 
adjudication of the boundary question left it just as 
it had been determined by the treaty following the 
war of the revolution.^ 

Michilimackinac, when a fort on tlie mainland, 
had from an early day been a depot for furs. The 
French military governor, or commandant, held a 
supervisory and fostering relation to the business. 
This w^as continued by the English when by their 
conquest of Canada their flag waved over the Straits. 
Traders established themselves within the palisades 
of the fort enclosure to barter with the Indians — 
cloth, beads, knives, powder and rum passing in ex- 
change for the peltries brought in from the woods. 
With the removal of the fort from the mainland to 
our island of Mackinac the fur trade continued, 
though with the change from the custom which had 
prevailed before that no longer were the traders al- 
lowed to have their business, their homes, their church 
and their whole community life within the fort en- 
closure. They thus formed a settlement at the foot 
of the fort hill which developed into the village of 

1 Mrs. Jameson, of England, in roeonnting hor traA^els in Can- 
ada (1837) relates: "Colonel Talbot (o> Canada), told me 
that when he took a maj), and pointed out to one of the Eng- 
lish Commissioners the foolish bargain they had made, the real 
extent, value and resources of the countries ceded to the United 
States, the man covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and 
burst into tears." 



EARLY FUK TRADE 105 

Mackinac. The JNIackinaw Eur Company was 
formed, and later the Southwestern Company took 
shape, both under British controk 

The spirit of American enterprise began to assert 
itself. John Jacob Astor of Xew A^ork, on a sugges- 
tion dropped by a chance fellow traveller on ship- 
board, had made a venture in Canadian peltries 
which proved very remunerative. This led to his em- 
barking further into the business. It was not long 
before he secured a controlling interest in both of 
these companies. Besides conducting operations in 
the regions already familiar, Astor sought to estab- 
lish an agency on the Pacific coast, a venturesome 
and unsuccessful enterprise minutely described by 
Washington Irving in his '^ Astoria." The compe- 
tition of the British traders, particularly of the 
powerful Northwest Company, Avas found wherever 
Astor turned. And the war of 1812 naturally 
proved unfortunate for his business schemes. But 
his prospects were vastly improved at the close of the 
war by an act of Congress which prohibited all Brit- 
ish traders or companies operating in the United 
States. The Xorthwest Company, which had been 
freely so doing, now found its establishment in those 
parts of little worth to its business. Astor went to 
Montreal and at almost his own price bought all 
their trading posts within the limits of the Enited 
States. Together with its posts, the ^N^orthwest Com- 
pany transferred many of its experienced agents, 
clerks, interpreters, and boatmen. The rivalry be- 
tween the two British Companies having now ceased, 
their old strife did not long continue. The Hudson's 
Bay Company and the Northwest settled their long- 



106 EARLY :^^ACKIXAC 

time feud b}' joining together, the latter giving np its 
name in that of the older association — the Hudson's 
Bay Company of two centuries ago. 

Astor now had a free course. The two companies, 
the Mackinaw and the Southwest, which he already 
controlled, were merged under the popular name of 
the American Fur Company. The business of the 
company grew and assumed great proportions. It 
had its connections and dependencies throughout the 
regions of the Mississippi, the Alissouri and the Yel- 
lowstone rivers as well as those nearer by. 

Mackinac Island Avas the company's headquarters 
of operation, and the little village took on an almost 
metropolitan character. It was a great mart of 
trade long before Chicago, ]\Iilwaukee or St. Paul 
had entered on their first beginnings, and vied with 
its cotemporaries, Detroit and St. Louis. The capi- 
tal and enterprise on the island pertained principally 
to the business of the Company. They furnished 
employment to a great number of men, who with 
their families largely contributed to the life of the 
village. In the summer, when for several weeks the 
agents and voyageurs (or canoe men) and the en- 
gages of different kinds gathered in from the widely 
scattered hunting and trading grounds of the wil- 
derness, they made, together with the local contingent 
employed the year through, " a force of some twenty- 
five hundred men, all representing the work of the 
great organization. The Company's warehouses, 
stores, offices and boat yards occupied much of the 
town plat. The present sunnner hotel. The John 
Jacob Astor, was originally built for their business, 
furnishing quarters for the housing of their men, 



THE AirEKTCATsT FUR CXmVAXY 107 

partieulai'lv at llic great summer gatlierings, and also 
ware-rooms wlicre the joeltries were Aveiglied and 
packed and kept in storage. 

The American Fnr Company continned to 
flonrish at Mackinac for a period of some twenty 
years. In 1834 Mr. Astor sold his interest, and the 
bnsiness declined. At length the Company with- 
drew entirely from the island, and for the remainder 
of its career was simply an agency for handling fnrs 
in ^ew York. Onr island, in a commercial and so- 
cial point of view, snifered greatly by this change. 
A considerable element of the popnlation removed. 
Bnsiness fell off, thongh to an extent revived by the 
development of the fishery interests. The old ware- 
houses and other quarters of the Company, once the 
scene of activity and bustle, stood only as mute wit- 
nesses to a former life until removed or reconstructed 
and put to other uses. Some of these buildings were 
depositories of old papers, account books, letters, 
memoranda, etc., of the defunct Company which, of 
no business value, had been left in closets and attic 
chests. The new owners of the buildings at length 
felt indisposed to longer give them " house room," 
and after more than a generation had passed, several 
large packing boxes, filled with these old documents, 
were opened and freely disposed of to any of the vil- 
lage people who cared to take them away. The his- 
toric or memorial interest not then being very strong, 
the papers were used in various ways, such as light- 
ing fires or putting them around the garden cabbage 
plants as protection against the cut-worm or a sum- 
mer frost, and in the kitchens of the good house- 
Avives they were serving to line cake-tins Avith. 



108 



EARLY MACKIKAC 



In ISO'"], and again in 1S70, portions of these old 
papers and record books, which by that time had be- 
come interesting relics, were rescned by an enthnsi- 
astic lady visitor on the island, and presented to the 
Cliicago Historical Society. In the great fire which 
swept over that city in 1871, these collections were 
destroved. In the Astor Honse on the island there 




OLD FUR CO.MPANY'S DESK. 



are two large copy-vohinies of letters written from 
the Company's office at Mackinac, and dating from 
a period the most flonrishing in its history. These 
old books interest many of the snnnner guests to-day. 
Also belonging to the same Hotel, and preserved as 



A^MEPJCAX FUE COMPA^^Y EELICS lOt) 

relics, are an old fashioned liigli-legged desk at which 
one of the clerks used to work in the Company'^, 
palmy days, and an old-style scales or '^ balances," 
which was nsed in weighing the peltries as they were 
packed and bound for storage or for shipment. 



CHAPTER IX 

In the earlj^ *^^J^y even as in the present, the time 
of greatest stir and animation on the ishmd was the 
summer season. Large companies of Indians from 
all quarters ahont the upper lakes would gather here. 
They came for the annuities from the government 
agent, and for trade and excitement — their wig- 
wams lining up on the beach, two and three rows 
deep, their light canoes skimming the water or, with 
bottom turned up, resting on the pebbly shore. In 
some seasons as many as three thousand were present. 
Their unrestrained indulgence in liquor and their 
war dances and rude sport, added to all the so-called 
pleasurings of the Fur Company's voyayeiirs and 
trappers from the distant woods, made the island 
for a few weeks a constant scene of wildness. 
The hill-side fort, however, Avith its soldiers and 
frowning cannon had a salutary influence, while the 
business which the season brought to the merchants 
and the Indian traders probably served to relieve the 
situation. 

The Indians were often but as babes in commer- 
cial transactions; and it is told of a certain settle- 
ment of them in the Grand Traverse Region, that 
coming to the island at such times thev were often 
accompanied by their mis^ioiuirv, the Rev. ^Ir. 
Dougherty, a Presbyterian minister, who would pitch 
his tent among them during their stay, not only to 

iia 



A CLASS OF SUMMER VISITORS 111 

guard their morals but to protect and assist tlieni, 
as best he miiiht, in their dealings with the traders.^ 
An.other chiss of summer '^ tourists " and visitors 
on the island were the Fiir Company's men, who 
would come in brigades of canoes with their collec- 
tions of fnrs from the different trading posts in the 
wilderness, extending from the line of the British 
dominion in the north to the Missouri in the west, 
and to the south nnto the confines of the white settle- 
ments. When all were thus assembled they added 
largely, for several weeks, to the white population 
of the village. Abont five luindred of them wT)uld 
be quartered in the Company's barracks, and others 
camped in tents, or were accommodated in. the honses 
of the islanders. Joviality and frollicking and ca- 
ronsals Avere the order of the day among these light- 
hearted and improvident men who in a few snmmer 
weeks, amid the scenes of nnaccnstomed social life, 
wonld throw away their hard-earned wages of ten 
months' toil in the desolate wilds. As the early an- 
tnmn approached they wonld gather the materials of 
another outfit, load their canoes, wave their good- 

1 As illustrating the obscurity and confusion attending an 
Indian's reasoning powers in business matters, Schoolcraft re- 
lates tlie following '' claim " submitted to himself when Indian 
agent at Mackinac by a certain old Ottawa chief: x\t one time 
atrader had taken from him forty beavers; at another time 
thirty beavers and bears; at another, ten beavers; and at an- 
other, thirty beavers and four carcasses of beavers, for all wdiich 
he had received no pay although promised it. Also, he had 
once served as a clerk or sub-trader for a merchant, for which 
he was to receive $500, and never got a cent of it. All this 
itemized " bill " he requested the President of the United States 
to pay! On inquiry it was found tliat the skins were sold, and 
the service rendered, and the wrong received some thirty or 
forty years before at Athabasca Lake, in the Hudson's Bay Ter- 
ritory, and far beyond the President's jurisdiction. 



112 EARLY MACKINAC 

byes, and dipping their paddles to the rhythm of 
their boat-songs, gaily move off for another campaign 
in the distant regions of the wilderness. 

These men were a class of their own. They Avere 
principally French Canadians, often with a mixtnre 
of Indian blood, who loved the free life of the water 
and the wilderness, and chafed nnder the restraints 
of settled society. Some of them in an earlier period 
had been known as Couriers dcs hois, — rangers of 
the woods. Of the same light-hearted, reckless and 
daring spirit they had been men of a little more re- 
sponsibility than the ordinary engague. They were 
a kind of pedlars or sub-merchants on a small scale. 
Three or four w^ould join their stock, put all in a 
canoe which they worked themselves, and push out 
into the wilderness to hunt and trap, and to barter 
Avitli the Indians for furs, and after twelve or fifteen 
months' absence in the woods would return Avith rich 
cargoes, squander all their gains and then go back 
penniless to their favorite mode of life. They have 
been described as '' grown up babes of the woods," on 
whom the dense and quiet forest tracts exercised a 
subtle fascination ; and Avho felt the enticements of 
fur hunting much the same as our pioneer roving 
miners Avould feel the passion of gold hunting.^ 
Later, however, Avhen the great fur companies con- 
trolled all this business, there Avas little scope for 
these petty dealers, and the men of that type of life 
merged into the class known as voyage urs. The roy- 
ageurs Avere canoe men AAdio handled the boats and 
Avorked them up the rapids in rivers and over por- 

1 " The hardy, adventurous, hiwless, fascinating fur trade." — 
Parknian's " The Old Regime in Canada." 



CANOESMEN AKD TIIEIE CANOES 113 

tagcs. Tlicv Avere rongli and bold and often as in- 
tractable as the Indians themselves, bnt of a cheerful 
and merry disposition/ devoid of ambition and con- 
tented nnder the privations and hardship of their 
life. Their food on their journeys was '' lyed " 
corn, a sort of hominy, and salt pork, or in the ab- 
sence of pork an allowance of tallow. This was 
greatly relished and gave them strength for their 
toils, better, it is said, than a diet of bread and fresh 
meat.^ 

The canoes used on these expeditions were fash- 
ioned on the model of the Indian canoe. They 
were made of birch-bark strippings a quarter of an 
inch in thickness, sewed together with fibres of spruce 
and made water-tight by hot pitch poured over 
the seams. The bark thus seamed together was 
stretched over thin ribs and cross bars of cedar. It 
was claimed that the white man had never been able 
to improve upon the original Indian idea. As in- 
tended for trading purposes, the canoes were often 
of great size, thirty or forty feet long and four to 
five feet wide. The ends were of gondola shape and 
often decorated with rude and gaudy paintings. 
They could carry, besides the crew of eight or ten 
men, four tons of freight, and yet in their construc- 

1 The fiddle was a part of their camp outfit. They carried 
with them into the wilderness and wherever they went their 
" melodies of the river, the chase, love and wassail." — " Wis- 
consin Collections," vol. 14. 

2 As givinjj^ some idea of the extent of this kind of navigation, 
we are told that in the palmy days of the Northwest Fur Com- 
pany not less than ten brigades, of twenty canoes each, used 
to pass and repass every summer, between Montreal and Fort 
\Yilliam on Lake Superior, carrying supplies to the upper coun- 
try and returning with furs. 



114 



EARLY MACKIXAC 



tion were very liglit and easily handled. These boats 
penetrated the recesses of the wilderness, not only 
following the rivers and every inlet, but '^ making a 




THE SHORE DRIVE. 



portage," as it was called, passing across land from 
one water highway to another. The portages were 
made by unloading the boat, wliich then (so light was 
its structure) could easily be carried on the shoulders 



CANOESMEN AND THEIR CANOES 115 

of two of the men, while the })acks of freight were 
strapped on the backs of the others.^ Thus loaded, 
the cavalcade ^voiild march tliroiigh thickets and 
swamps and over hills to the next sheet of water. 

In the water the canoes were propelled, generally, 
by paddles made of the light red cedar, though in fa- 
vorable winds a square sail might be hoisted. Later 
the American Fur Co. introduced oars. The rate 
of travel would average forty miles a day. After 
the fur trade declined and there was less call for 
the old lines of work, but more canoe journeying of 
a general kind, many of the old voyageur class be- 
came " masters of transportation " as it were, and 
'^ public carriers," on the upper lakes, in the days be- 
fore steam navigation had fully developed its lines. 
The men were experts wdth the paddle, and capable 
of prolonged steady work, and the records sometimes 
made were astonishing. They could easily maintain 
a speed of four miles per hour for the whole day. 
Col. McKenney tells of thus journeying on these 
lakes in 1826, when his men had been one day pad- 
dling constantly since three o'clock in the morning. 
At sunset he proposed they go ashore for the night. 
But they assured him they were still fresh, and they 
continued at work until half past nine o'clock, wdiich 
made a journey for the day of seventy-nine miles. 
While forty strokes a minute was a common rate of 
speed, they were capable of sixty, he says, and they 
placed the paddles in the water and took them out 
as noiselessly as if it had been oil. No duck moved 

1 Of the smaller sized bark canoes — they M'ere so light that 
after being nnburdencd the person who was the last to step out 
could take it by one of the thin ribs that crossed it midway and 
walk out with it upon the shore as if it were a basket. 



IIG EARLY MACKIXAC 

on the surface of the water ^' with greater buoyancy 
or stilhiess, than do these birchen canoes." The 
motion was often accompanied by the notes of the 
Canadian boat songs sung by the crew, the measure 
and cadence of which would tally with the propelling 
strokes — 

" Their voices kept tune, 

And their paddles kept time." i 

So charmed was the Colonel by his experiences in 
the canoe that he adopted as his own the sentiments 
of another enthusiast wdio had '^ dropped into po- 
etry " on the subject — a few stanzas of which we 
venture to quote, admirable as a tribute at least, if 
not of the highest poetic merit : 

" In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep 
Our beautiful fabric was built; 
Light cedar supported its weiglit in the deep, 
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt. 

" Its rim was with tender young roots woven round, 
Like a pattern of wicker-work rare; 
And it press'd on the waves with as lightsome a bound 
As a basket suspended in air. 

" The heavens in their brightness and glory below 
Were reflected quite plain to the view, 

1 Isaac Weld, an English traveler in Canada, 1795-1797, de- 
scribing his canoe journey tells of one instance when tlie men 
were kept at the paddles all night; and notwithstanding tliey 
had labored hard during the day, " they plied as vigorously as 
if tliey had just set out, singing merrily the whole time. The 
French Canadians have a good ear for music, and sing with 
tolerable accuracy. They have one favorite song among them 
called 'the rowing duet,' which as they sing they mark time 
to with each stroke of the oar; indeed, when rowing in smooth 
water, they mark the time of most of the airs they sing in the 
same manner." The singing, it was said, enabled them to pad- 
dle more steadily and keep better time. 



TOILING AND SINGING 117 

And it moved like a swan — Milli as graceful a show, 
Our beautiful birchen canoe. 

" Oh, long will we think of those silver bright lakes, 
And the scene they exposed to our view ; 
Our friends — and the wishes we formed for their sakes, 
And our bright yellow birclien canoe," 

Mrs. Jameson, from whom I have ah^eady quoted, 
and must yet again before this book is finished, de- 
scribes her canoe journey through the Georgian Bay, 
made about ten years subsequent to McKenney's. 
" The Roman Emperor," she says, '^ who proclaimed 
a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure ought 
to have made a voyage down Lake Huron in a birch 
bark canoe." In her party there were two canoes, 
each twenty-five feet long and four feet in width, 
'' tapering to the two extremities, and light, elegant 
and buoyant as the sea-mew when it skims the sum- 
mer waves." Her voyarjeurs were Canadian half- 
breeds, '' young, well-looking, full of glee and good 
nature, with untiring arms and more untiring lungs 
and spirits," and showing toward herself a never fail- 
ing gallanterie." Their singing of the Canadian 
])()at songs was very animated on the water and in 
tlie open air. They all sang in unison, raising their 
voices and marking the time with their paddles. 
Their progress over the water '^ was measured by 
pipes." At the end of a certain time there is a pause, 
" and they light their pipes and smoke for about five 
minutes, then the paddles go off merrily again at the 
rate of about fifty strokes in a minute and we abso- 
lutely seem to fly over the water. ^ Trois pipes ' are 
libout twelve miles." ^ She was often amused by a 

^ " A French Canadian is scarcely ever without a pipe in his 



118 EARLY MACKIXAC 

specimen of dexterity on tlie part of her good iiatiired 
cavalier men of the pachlk^ " like that of an accom- 
plished Avliip in London. Thev wonld paddle np 
toward the shore Avith snch velocity that I expected to 
])e dashed on the rock, and then in a moment, hy a 
simnltaneons hack-stroke of the paddle, stop with a 
jerk, which made me breathless." 

Another graphic canoeing pictnre of those times is 
given by H. H. Bancroft in the '' Xorth West Coast " 
of his series, ^' Llistory of the Pacific States." It 
was as the voyageurs approached the end of their 
jonrney, he says, that they merged into their gayest 
mood. An elaborate toilet was made ; men and boats 
were decorated with ribbons, tassels and gandy feath- 
ers; the chanson a Vaviron (song of the oar) was 
strnck and the plaintive paddling melody, which the 
distant listener might almost fancy to be the yqvj 
voice of monntain, wood, and stream nnited, swelled 
on nearer approach into a hymn of manly exnltation, 
and with flonrish of paddle keeping time to song and 
chorns they swept ronnd bend or point, and landed 
with a whoop and wild halloo. Lie describes it as 
a brilliant and stirring scene to '^ stand upon the bank 
and witness the arrival of a brigade of light canoes, 
dashing np with arrow-swiftness to the very edge of 
the little wharf; then, like a Mexican with his mns- 
tang, coming to a sudden stop, accomplished as if by 

mouth, whether working at tlie oar or plougli, whether on foot, 
or on horseback; indeed, so nuich addicted are the people to 
smoking that by the burning of tlie tobacco in their ])ipes they 
commonly ascertain the distance from one place to another. 
"Such a place," they say, 'Ms three pipes off" — it is that far 
that 3'ou can smoke three pipes of toljacco in walking to it." — 
Isaac Weld, in his " Travels Through the States of \orth Amer- 
ica and Provinces of Canada in 1705, 'DG, and '07." 



BORROWEi) DESCRIPTIONS lltJ 

miracle by l):i('kiii<; water sinniltaiH^oiisly, eaeli witli 
his iitiiKxl sfi'cii^lh tlieii rolling their paddles all to- 
gether on the gnnwale, shake from tluur bright ver- 
milion blades a shower of spray, from which the 
rowers lightly emerge as from a cloud." 

Or let "US take one more description of this '^ hom- 
ing " scene from the same writer : " Forty or sixty of 
these fantastically painted boats rnshing through the 
Avater at reindeer speed under a cloud of flying spray 
toward their last landing, while in the breast of every 
tugging oarsman there were twenty caged hozannas 
which, rising faintly at first, were poured in song 
upon the breeze from five hundred tremulous tongues 
until finally, breaking all control, they would burst 
forth in one loud, long peal of triumphant joy." 



CHAPTER X 

In the year 1822 there occurred on the island an 
event which became famous in the annals of i)hysi- 
ology and of medical experiment, both in tliis cowu- 
try and throughout Europe. This was the incident 
of Alexis St. Martin, wlio was accidentally wounded 
Avhile handling a shot gun, and his treatment by 
Dr. Wm. Beaumont, the Post Surgeon. The acci- 
dent hap2:)ened in the retail store room of the Ameri- 
can Eur Company. The room still stands ; a base- 
ment or groimd floor, a strong stone structure, over 
which was a second story built of logs. This upper 
story was afterwards removed, and an attractive white 
frame cottage with dormer windows is now to be seen 
built on the same high foundation walls which then 
made the store room. The Iniilding is situated near 
the foot of the Eort hill, on the corner of the street. 

St. Martin was a young Erench Canadian in the 
employ of the American Eur Co. Mr. Gurdon S. 
Hubbard, a pioneer citizen of Chicago, at that 
time a young man living on the island, and present 
in the room when the accident occurred, thus wrote 
of it in his autobiography, published in 1888 : ^' One 
of the party was holding a shot gun which was acci- 
dentally discharged, the whole charge entering St. 
Martin's body. The muzzle was not )ver tliree feet 
from him ; I think not over two. The wadding en- 

120 



FIKST CASE OF ITS KIND 



1:^1 



terecl, as well as jneecs of his clotliing; his shirt took 
fire; he fell, as we supposed, dead." 

The shot had entered his side and perforated his 
stomach. Dr. Beanmont w^as immediately called 
and nndertook the treatment of the wound. In his 




DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT. 



report of the case^ he says he fonnd '^ a portion of the 
Inng as large as a tnrkey's egg protrnding from the 
external Avonnd, lacerated and bnrnt, and immedi- 
ately below this another protrnsion, which proved to 
be a portion of the stomach, lacerated throngh all its 



122 EARLY MACKIXAC 

coats and pouring ont the food lie liad taken for his 
breakfast." 

The man was healed and ronnded ont a good period 
of life. He became the father of a family and was 
able to serve in different forms of mannal labor. 
Dr. Beanmont kept him in his employ long after he 
was healed for the pnrpose of condncting his valna- 
ble experiments, and at different intervals dnring a 
period of eleven years, at Fort Mackinac and at 
other army posts where he was stationed as snrgeon, 
he made him the snbject of painstaking study in the 
interest of medical science. lie afterwards pnb- 
lished a book detailing the Avhole case. The orifice 
into the stomach, abont two and a half inches long, 
was pnrposely kept open, and tlirongh it as throngh 
a window (the man lying on his back as he took his 
food) Beanmont stndied the processes of digestion, 
and the natnre of the gastric jnice — wdiich he wonld 
extract throngh the apertnre and then analyze and 
make experiments with. His range of experiments, 
covering nearly every article of food, afforded o])- 
portnnity of determining the variations in their di- 
gestibility. And in his observations on St. Martin, 
who was not always in an amiable mood when thns 
being diagnosed (having to lie on his back while eat- 
ing and sometimes reqnired, '' in the interest of sci- 
ence," to fast from twelve to eighteen honrs) the 
Doctor noted the fact that anger and impatience re- 
tarded, or checked entirely, the digestive process! 

The poor fellow was often irritable, not only as 
being the snbject of these scientific experiments in 
which it is likely he had not himself the slightest in- 
terest (albeit it heralded his name thronghont the 



FIKST CASE OF ITS KIND 123 

medical world) l)nt because also lie wa;^ subject to the 
jibes of the populace. They called him '' the man 
with the lid on his stomach/' and made sport of him, 
and he was often provoked to resent their jeers in hot 
blood, with warnings to the Doctor about " giving np 
his job/' and on one or two occasions peremptorily 
doing so. The surgeon had need of all his patience 
and tact in dealing with his interesting '' study." 

It was the first opportunity ever offered of an ocu- 
lar examination of the interior of the human stom- 
ach in the moments of its functional work. During 
an examination, Dr. Beaumont says : " St. Martin 
swallowed part of a glass of water, and, being in a 
strons: liffht, favorable to an internal view through 
the aperture, I distinctly saw^ the w^ater pass into the 
cavity of the stomach through the cardiac orifice, a 
circumstance, perhaps, never before witnessed in a 
living subject. On taking repeated draughts of wa- 
ter, Avhile in this position, it would gush out at the 
aperture the instant it passed through the cardia. 
Food swallowed in this position could be distinctly 
seen to enter the stomach." 

Thus, he tells us in the preface of the book, '^ the 
secretions and operations of the stomach have been 
submitted to my observation in a very extraordinary 
manner, in a state of perfect health and for years 
in succession ; " that the case presented '' a concur- 
rence of circumstances which probably can never 
again occur ; " and furnished '' a body of facts which 
can not be invalidated." 

The publication of Beaumont's book was an event 
of great note in the medical world. Dr. S. C. Ayers 
of Cincinnati in a paper on the subject read before 



124 EARLY MACKINAC 

tlie .Vcadoiny of ^Arodiciiio of tlmt city, January 1890, 
says: "All Avriters and teachers on physiology, 
Englisli, French and German as well as Americans, 
have acknowledged their indebtedness to Ueaumont 
for placing an obscnre and donbtful snbject on a 
well-fonnded basis of facts derived from his extended 
and critical observations;" and that " np to the 
present day the book is qnoted, and always will be." 

Dr. Beaumont afterwards lived in St. Lonis, Mo., 
a leading man in his profession nntil his death in 
1853. A certain street in that city bears his name 
to-day, Avhile a higher and worthier tribute to his 
memory in that community is the Beaumont Hos- 
pital Medical College. The medical societies of 
Michigan (tlie Upper Peninsula and the State socie- 
ties) have placed a memorial stone in the Mackinac 
fort grounds beside the old stone quarters where the 
surgeon dwelt when an officer of the post, and where 
the experiments in the case Avere first conducted. 
The inscription on the stone reads: 

'' Near this spot Dr. William Beaumont, U. S. A., 
made his experiments upon Alexis St. Martin, which 
brought fame to himself and honor to American med- 
icine." 

The village at that period contained about four 
hundred and fifty permanent inhabitants. Their 
chief occupation was fishing in summer and hunting 
in winter. The community had an antique and for- 
eign style of its own — the Indian with his plumes 
and his bright and decorated costume, the Canadian 
rover thoughtless, bent on the present and heedless 
of to-morrow, and the petty trader, habituated to the 



A MEMOKIAL TIUBUTE 125 

woods and only temporarily in the haunts of men. 
The French language, or rather that known as " Ca- 
nadian French," was chiefly spoken. Society was 
of diverse elements. The original stock was based 
on the old French and Indian mixture — the de- 
scendants of the canoe men and trappers and clerks 
and interpreters who had generally married Indian 
women. Gurdon Hubbard, already referred to, de- 
scribing the situation as it was in the early twenties, 
said there were not more than twelve white women 
on the island, the residue of the female population 
being either all or part Indian. For a time during 
the British dominion an English element figured, but 
this seemed to withdraw after the island changed its 
sovereignty. An Irish element then appeared and 
continued, founding itself to some extent on inter- 
marriage with the natives. In the flourishing period 
of the Fur Company the social life of the island was 
perhaps at its best development. It was represented 
by the magnates and factors of that Company, by the 
niilitary circle of the fort, by the Government offi- 
cials of the civil service as connected with the Cus- 
tom-house and with the Indian affairs, by the com- 
pany of teachers in the work of the Mission 
school then maintained, and by the families of the 
merchants and leading traders. 

Like the rest of the world our island shows its 
changes and improvements since that day of primi- 
tive conditions. Large anc. luxurious steam vessels, 
mooring Avithin inniiense dock slips, have succeeded 
to the canoes which once lined the pebbly shores. 
The picturesque wigwams and birch-bark huts and 
rude barrack quarters of the former '' resorters " 



126 EAiaY MACKIXAC 

have given way to the modern hotel and boarding 
home and to the nnmerons and diversified cottages, 
peopled by another type of season visitors. A differ- 
ent class, indeed, bnt still the real successors are we 
of the Indians and of the old Fur Company trappers 
and boatmen who were wont to gather here, summer 
after summer, in the days of early IMackinac. Car- 
riages and equi]Dages of every description pass swiftly 
over roads where formerly wheeled vehicles and 
horses were unknoAvn, and when doff-trains and win- 
ter sledges and a few ox carts in the hill woods com- 
prised almost the total of animal draught power. A 
boulevard drive-way along the beach, designed to en- 
circle the whole island, is in course of construction. 
Water works and electric lighting and the telephone 
system are among the present conveniences of the 
old-time village. The large State Park, embracing 
nearly one-half the woods of the island, and threaded 
by the best of roads, and a thing of State guardian- 
shilD and care, is another modern feature. And the 
project of a beautiful little park, at the foot of the 
fort and in the current of the village life, adorned 
by a memorial statue of the early missionary and ex- 
])lorer, ]\Iarquette, whose name the park will bear, 
has been initiated. These are some of the changes, 
but in its natural beauty, its purity of atmosphere, its 
surrounding panorama of mighty waters, and in all 
that makes its subtle charm and spell, the island is 
the same as of yore, and beyond the power of man's 
enterprise to change or improve. Tt is a small tract 
of land not subject to the prevailing conditions of 
other communities, and to an unusual degree it pre- 
serves its pristine character. 



AN OLD-TIME rilEDICTiOiST 127 

The following, written by a reflecting visitor many 
years ago, when the aborigines were still lingering 
in the neighborhood of the island, and when modern 
life was in its " day of small things," may well be 
repeated now. The prediction it contains is seen 
to-day, at any rate, and doubtless will long continue 
to be realized : '' The Straits of Mackinac will al- 
ways command attention. Through this channel Avill 
pass, for ages to come, a great current of commerce, 
and its shores will be enlivened with civilized life 
wdiere at present the Indian still lingers, but alas ! is 
fast passing away." 



CHAPTEPi XI 

Eakly Mackinac had among its citizens, sparse 
though its popnhition was, a number of men of strong 
character and great business enterprise. Among 
them, not to speak of all, were Michael Dousman, 
John Dousman, Edward ]jiddle, Gurdon S. Hub- 
bard, Samuel Abbot and Andu'ose Davenport. John 
Dousman, Abbott and Davenport were the deputa- 
tion of three gentlemen referred to by Lieut. I Tanks, 
in his rei)oi't of the surrender of the fort, as having 
accompanied the flag of truce in the negotiations be- 
tween Captain Poberts and himself. After the Eng- 
lish came into possession, the citizens were required 
to take the oath of allegiance to the king. Of those 
then living on the island, five are reported as refus- 
ing to do this — ^lessrs. Davenport, l^ostwick, Stcme, 
and the two Dousmans.^ With the exception of 
Michael Dousman, who was permitted to remain neu- 
tral, they were obliged to leave their homes and their 
property until the close of the war. Besides these, 
there were afterwards three men in particular who 
figured in large spheres, and were in reputation in 
other parts of the land as well as in this remote wil- 
derness point. These were Pamsey Crooks, Pobcrt 
Stuart and Henry K-. Schoolcraft. 

1 Biddle and Hubbard were not then residents of the isbind. 
Biddle was a brotlier of Xiehohis Biddle of Banlv fame in Jaek- 
son's time. 

128 



EAMSEY CKOOKS 129 



Mr. Crooks came to America from Scotland, as a 
young man. His career was an active and stirring- 
one. He was known in connection with the fnr trade, 
it is said, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. IHs busi- 
ness involved much of perilous journeying and start- 
ling adventure in the north and in the far west. He 




HENRY R. 8CII00LCRAFT, LL.D. 

was with Hunt's expedition across the Rocky Moun- 
tains and to the Pacific coast, as far back as 
1811, and again the next year he made the same over- 
land journey back to the East. He was an edu- 
cated, intelligent man, well experienced in human 
nature, and highly rated for his judgment, his enter- 



130 EARLY MACKIXAC 

prise and liis integrity. lie was one of Mr. Astor's 
right hand men in the extensive bnsiness of the fnr 
company. In the American expedition against the 
island in ISl-t, in the attempt to dishxlgo the Eng- 
lish, he, together Avith Davenport and John Donsman, 
had accompanied the squadron — tlie hitter two as ex- 
patriated citizens, well acqnainted Avith the waters, 
to help as gnides ; and Crooks to Avatch, as far as he 
conld, the interests of Mr. Astor.^ He did not make 
Mackinac his permanent residence during the Avhole 
time of his connection Avith the bnsiness, but Avas 
more or less on the island and engaged in its office 
Avork. NcAV A^ork, afterAvards, Avas his home; and 
on Astor's selling out, he became chief proprietor 
and the president of the comj^any. It is said of him 
that he concentrated, in his reminiscences, the his- 
tory of the fur trade in America for forty years. 
He died in 'New York in 1859. 

Robert Stuart Avas also a natiA^e of Scotland, born 
in 1781. He came to America at the age of twenty- 
two years, and illustrated the same spirit of enter- 
prise and adventure. He first lived in Montreal, 
and served Avith the NortliAvestern Fur Co. In 
1810 he connected himself, together Avith his uncle, 
David Stuart, Avith Mr. Astor's business, and Avas one 
of the party that sailed from ^N^cav Y^ork by the ship 
" Tonquin " to found the fur trade city of Astoria, on 
the Pacific Coast. In 1812, it being exceedingly im- 
])ortant that certain papers and dispatches be taken 

1 Schoolcraft speaking of Davciii)ort (who, he says. Avas a 
Virginian), refers to his tluis " sailing ahout the island and in 
sight of his own home." He remarks, too. that for his snflfer- 
ings and losses, lie onght to have been remunerated by the Gov- 
ernment. 



K015ERT 8TUAKT 131 

from Astoria to New York, and the ship in the niean^ 
time being destroyed, and there being no way of 
making the trip by sea, Stuart was pnt at the head 
of a party to undertake the journey overland. Tvam- 
sey Crooks was one of the band. This trip across 
the mountains and through the country of wild In- 
dians, and over arid plains, involved severe hard- 
ships and peril, and illustrated the nerve, and vigor, 
and resources of the young leader. The party was 
nearly a year on the Avay. In 1817 he came to Mack- 
inac and became a resident partner of the American 
Fur Company, and superintendent of its entire busi- 
ness in the west. He was remarkably energetic in 
business, a leader among men, and a conspicuous and 
forceful character wherever he might be placed. In 
the lack of hotel accommodations his home Avas con- 
stantly giving hospitable welcome and entertainment 
to visiting strangers. He dwelt on the island for 
fifteen years, and when the company sold out in 
ISol, removed to Detroit. He Avas afterAvard ap- 
pointed by the Government as Indian Commissioner 
for all the tribes of the nortliAvest, and guarded their 
interests Avitli paternal care. The Indians used to 
speak of him as their best friend. He also served 
as State treasurer, and at the expiration of his term 
of othce Avas trustee and secretary of the Illinois and 
Michigan Canal Board. Active in great connuercial 
and public interests, he was also, subsequent to his 
conversion on the island in 1828, zealous and promi- 
nent in church Avork and always bore a high Chris- 
tian character. He died A^ery suddenly at Chicago, 
in 1848. His body Avas taken by a vessel over the 
lakes to Detroit f(n- burial. In passing Mackinac 



132 EARLY MACKINAC 

the boat laid awhile at the dock, and all the people 
of the village paid their respects to the dead body 
of one Avho had been in former years a resident of 
the island, so well known and so greatly esteemed. 

In connection with the Fnr Company work of the 
island, which these two men did so mnch to promote, 
it may be well to quote from Mrs. John Kinzie, the 
wife of a Chicago pioneer, who with her hnsband 
was here in 1830. In her interesting book '^ Wau- 
Ijun, the ' Early Day ' in the Northwest," she thns 
Avrites, speaking of that period : '' These were the 
palmy days of Mackinac. It was no nnnsnal thing 
to see a hnndred or more canoes of Indians at once 
api)roaching the island, laden with their articles of 
trathc ; and if to these Avas added the S(]nadron of 
large Mackinaw boats constantly arriving from the 
ont])osts with the fnrs, peltries and buffalo robes col- 
lected by the distant traders, some idea may be 
formed of the extensive o])erations and the important 
position of the American Enr Company, as well as of 
the vast circle of human beings either immediately or 
remotely connected with it." 

Henry R. Schoolcraft lived on the island from 
1833 to 1841. He was a native of the State of New 
York. lie was a student, an investigator into the 
facts and phenomena of nature, a remarkable lin- 
guist, a great traveler and explorer, and a prolific 
writer. He was given to archaeological researches ; 
he explored the valley of the Mississippi ; he investi- 
gated the mineral resources of nnich of the west, par- 
ticularly of Missouri ; and he discovered the source 
of the Mississippi river. His great work, and by 
which he is most known, was that in connection with 



HENKY U. SCILOOLCKAET 133 

the In.linn v■^ev, l.nving spent thirty years oi Lis 
fe in contact with then,, lieshles his travels aujong 
c Hh s thr.,n.hont the .'est and nortlnv.st .'here 
p, nits led hin, l.e was the Govermnent a,en 
n 1 ulian affairs, iirst at Sault Ste. Mane lor eleven 
ars and then at Mackinac for erglit years, lie 
Sons that at one tin.e over fonr rt^sand n .an 
were encan.ped along the sln^res of tl^e si I fo, a 
„,onth ; and that the annnities he paid that year 
amonnted to $370,000 in money and goo s. lie 
a so served in the negotiation of treaties for the Gov- 
l-l^nt with the tribes. While living at t e S.v,U, 
he married a half-blood Indian girl. Her latl^, 
v. .Tohn Johnston, was an Irish gentleman o go d 
standing, who, dwelling in the -l^!"-- ^ ^^ 
of Lake Superior, had found a wife i" !''« '^^^ ;'' ^ 
of .n Indian Chief. This daughter, Miss Johnston, 
b K b en sent to Europe while a young girl to be 
: eSunder the care of her father's re atn^s and 
e became a refined and cultivated Christian lady. 
Mr Schoolcraft in his eight years' residence on 
the tan 1 lived in the bouse known to all readers 
of M s Woolson's An«e as the " Old Agency." He 
writes on his arrival: "We found o-s^-^ J^ 
;,. the rural and pictnresque grounds and domicUe 
of the United States Agency, --''l^^S'^^^ /^^^ 
impending cliffs and --"^^^^ ^j ,;Utrv - 
pleasing and captivatmg views of l^^;^ /^'^<^"^;^ ^^ 
Every subject of scientific interest, all the phys eat 
phenomena of the island, and its antiquities and his- 

then generally supposed. 



134 EARLY MACKINAC 

toric features, and all questions pertaining to the In- 
dians and their race characteristics, their hahits and 
customs, their language, their traditions and legends, 
their religion, and especially all that might lead to 
their moral and social improvement — these were 
matters of his constant study. At the same time he 
kept abreast of the general literature of the day, 
reading the books of note as they appeared and him- 
self making contributions to literature by his own 
books and review articles and treatises, which were 
pu])lished in the East and in England. In his remote 
island home, ice-bound for half the year and largely 
shut out from the world, he was yet well known by 
his writings in the highest circles of learning. Vis- 
itors of note from Europe as well as from the Eastern 
States, coming to the island, were frequently calling 
at his house with letters of introduction. He was 
voted a complimentary membership in numerous sci- 
entific, historical and antiquarian societies, both in 
this country and in the old world. He had corre- 
spondents among scholars and savants of the highest 
rank. ITis opinions and views on subjects of which 
he had made a study were greatly prized. The emi- 
nent Sir Humphrey Davy, of England, for instance, 
expressed the highest appreciation of certain contri- 
butions of scientific interest which llr. Schoolcraft 
had prepared in his island home; and Charles Dar- 
win, in his work, ^' The Descent of Man," quotes 
with approval some opinion he had expressed, and 
calls him '^ a most capable judge." Prof. Silliman, 
also ex-Presidents John Adams, Thos. Jefferson and 
James Madison, wrote him letters of marked appro- 
bation respecting a contribution he had written for 



HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT 137 

the American Geological Society. Bancroft con- 
ferred with liim before writing those parts of his 
" History of the United States," which pertain to 
the Indians, and was in freqnent correspondence 
with him; and Longfellow, in his Hiawatha Indian 
notes, expresses his sense of obligation to him. 
Some of Schoolcraft's lectnres were translated into 
French, and a prize was awarded him by the Na- 
tional Institnte of France. Among his freqnent cor- 
respondents, as he was an active Christian and in 
sympathy with all chnrch interests, were the secre- 
taries of different missionary societies in the East, 
seeking his opinion and his connsel in reference to 
the location of stations and the methods of work 
among the Indian tribes. The amonnt of literary 
work he accomplished was remarkable, especially in 
view of his pnblic services, which often required ex- 
tensive journeys in distant wilderness regions, and 
much of camp life. He was of remarkable physical 
vigor and industry, however, and it is said of him, 
that he had been known to write from sun to sun al- 
most every day for many years. 

Mr. Schoolcraft removed from the island to New 
York in 184-1, and after an extensive travel through 
Europe, devoted himself principally to literary Avork. 
He published about thirty different books. These 
largely pertained to his explorations, and to scientific 
subjects. The chief products of his pen in respect 
to the Indians were his ^^ Algic Researches," and 
later his very extensive ^' Ethnological Researches 
among the Red Men," which was prepared under the 
direction and patronage of Congress. It is in six 
large volumes with over 300 colored engravings, 



138 EAELY MACKIXAC 

and was issued in \\w ])v<t stylo of tlio printer's art. 
It is a thesanrns of information, and fnrnishes the 
most comi)lete and antlientic treatment the snbject 
has ever received. 

For nearly twenty years Mr. Schoolcraft lived at 
Washington, and died there in December, 1804. 
The Rev. Dr. Sunderland, for over forty years a 
Presbyterian pastor in that city, has said of him : 
^' He was a noble Christian man, and his last years 
were spent in the society of his friends and among 
his books ... a modest, retiring, unostentations 
man, but of deep, sincere piety and greatly interested 
in the Avelfare of mankind." 



CHAPTER XII 

With the explorer, the trader and the soldier, in 
the early days of the French occupation, there came 
also the missionary. ^lore than two centuries ago 
pioneer Jesuit priests planted the cross in these wilds 
of the upper lakes; first at Sault Ste. Marie, as 
early as two hundred and fifty years since, and then 
in 1671 in our Michilimackinac region of St. Ig- 
nace,^ on the northern mainland, four miles across 
from the island. The latter w^ork is associated par- 
ticularly Avith Marquette, who founded it, and who 
Avas one of the most heroic and devoted of the early 
missionaries who came to this continent from France. 
He was a scholar and a man of science, according 
to the attainments of that day. It is said he was ac- 
quainted with six different languages. He was held 
in reverent esteem, hoth by the savages of the woods 
and by the traders and officers of the settlements. 
To his culture, his refinement and his spirituality 
were added the enthusiasm and daring of the ex- 
plorer. He went out to find new countries as also 
to preach in the pagan wilds. In 1673, accom- 
panied by Joliet, he set forth from St. Ignace with a 
small compan.y in two bark canoes, on a long voyage 
of discovery. He struck out into Lake Michigan, 
thence into the rivers of Wisconsin, and thence into 
the Mississippi, and floated down that great river 

1 Point Iroqviois, as it was first Iviiown. 
130 



140 EARLY MACKTXAC 

as far as to a point some tliirtv miles helow the 
mouth of tlie Arkansas river, ahiiost to the Louisiana 
line. There the southern journey Avas ended and the 
return trip was hegun — ascending the Mississippi, 
entering the Illinois and thus reaching Lake Michi- 
gan again. But for Marquette the trip was never 
finished. He died at a point on the eastern shore of 
that lake, ahout midway hetween its upper and lower 
ends, and was buried there by his ever faithful and 
devoted Indian companions. Two years afterwards 
his body was exhumed and reverently taken back for 
interment at the St. Ignace ^lission, which he had 
hmgingly desired again to reach, but had died with- 
out the sight. The discovery of his grave, in the 
present town of St. Ignace, in the year 1877, has 
given new interest to that locality. 

Following the temporary abandonment of the 
French post of Michilimackinac in 1701, and the re- 
moval of the settlement to Detroit, as already referred 
to, the St. Ignace Mission was given up, and the 
church burned by the priests themselves in fear 
lest it should be sacrilegiously destroyed by the sav- 
ages. Subsequently, on the re-establishment of 
the fort on the southern peninsula opposite, the Cath- 
olic mission was revived and the Church of St. Ann 
Avas organized — the church and the entire settlement 
of families, as well as the garrison, being within the 
palisade enclosure. When in 1780 the fort was re- 
moved to the island — and the settlers following — 
the church was also removed, its logs and timbers be- 
ing taken down separately and then re jointed and set 
up again. It stood on the old burying lot south of 
the present Astor House. Subsequently it was re- 



MADAM LA FKAMBOISE 141 

moved to another site. An addition was made ex- 
tending its length, and the old chnrcli continned 
to stand nntil it gave way to the present large edi- 
fice, bnilt on the same spot, in 1871. As an organi- 
zation, however, the chnrch dates far back to the 
early days over at old Mackinaw. The gronnd on 
which the bnilding now stands was a beqnest to the 
parish by a Madam La Framboise, who lived near 
by, with the stipnlation that at death her body 
slionld be buried under the altar, in case the church 
should be removed to the place indicated. This be- 
ing done, the conditions of the will were fulfilled. 
This Madam was of Indian blood, and the widow of 
a French fur trader. She is reported to have been 
a Avoman of remarkable energy and enterprise, and 
on the death of her husband ably managed the busi- 
ness he had left. She acquired the rudiments of ed- 
ucation after her marriage, being taught by her hus- 
bandj and in later years made it a custom to receive 
young pupils at her house to teach them to read and 
write, and also to instruct them in the principles of 
her religion. Her daughter became the wife of 
Lieut. John S. Pierce, a brother of President Pierce, 
wdio was an officer at the garrison in the early days, 
1815-1820. 

In the early times, the island being so remote a 
pioneer point, and its population meagre, this parish 
did not always have a resident priest, and for much 
of the time could only be visited by one at irregular 
and often distant intervals. In 1782, a petition 
signed by merchants and other inhabitants of the 
village, was addressed to General Ilaldimand, the 
English Governor General of the Province, asking 



142 ExVELY MACKINAC 

that the Government take steps to aid in secnring a 
ciu-e, or minister of religion, for the stated mainte- 
nance of services. There appears nothing to show 
that this Avas granted. The fnr trade bronght an 
element of joopulation of a very mixed character. 
There were the edncated officers and clerks of the com- 
pany, and the voyageurs and trappers, who spent 
most of their time in the woods and on the 
Avater, wdth Mackinac as their place of resting and 
Avage-payment, and the place of the reckless Avasting 
of their hard-earned money. One Avho kncAV Avell 
the early character of the island, said of it, that few 
places on the continent had been so celebrated a lo- 
cality for Avild enjoyment ; that the earnings of a year 
Avere often spent in the caronsals of a Aveek or a day ; 
that the lordly Highlander, the impetnons son of 
Erin, and the prond and independent Englishman, 
did not do much better on the score of moral re- 
sponsibilities than the hnmble voyageurs and courier 
des hols; that they broke generally, nine ont of the 
ten connnandments Avithont a Avincc, but ke])t the 
other A'ery scrnpnlonsly, and Avonld flash np and call 
their companions to a duel Avho doubted them on 
that point ! 

Protestant Missions in the Avest gradually took 
shape as the settlement of the country advanced 
from the sea-board. The Rev. David Bacon, of the 
Connecticut Missionary Society, the father of the 
late Dr. Leonard Bacon, preached on the island for 
a short time as far back as 1802; not, however, es- 
tablishing a mission or organizing a church. Then, 
in 1S2(), the Bcw. Tedidiah Morse, D. D., a Congre- 
ii'ational minister, the father of the inventor of the 



EPISCOPAL CiiUKCii ORGANIZED 143 

telegraph system, visited the ishind, and made a 
short stay. Tiie same Dr. Morse was the author of 
'^ Morse's Geography/' once extensively nsed in 
our schools, and still well remembered. In earlier 
years the fort was a chaplaincy post, and the clergy- 
man in charge, the Kev. Mr. O'Brien, from 1842 un- 
til the opening of the civil war in 18G1, conducted 
stated services of the Episcopal form of worship, 
which accommodated the people of the village as well 
as the soldiers. Out of this work grew the Trinity 
Episcopal Church, organized iu 1873, under the min- 
istration of the Rev. Wm. G. Stonex, who continued 
for some years the resident clergyman. Eor a time 
the parish held its Sunday services in the fort chapel ; 
then the old Court House (now the City Hall) was 
used, and in 1882 the present Church building was 
erected. There is generally a resident clergyman in 
charge. The Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies, U. D., 
bishop of the diocese of Michigan, being a summer 
cottager, frequently officiates. The Union Congre- 
gational church was organized April 1900, and at 
present use the City Hall as their place of meeting. 
A church edifice is in contemplation. 

To go back again to our earlier period. At the 
time of Dr. Morse's visit to the island, he was under 
commission by the U. S. government on a two years' 
tour of observation and inspection among the various 
Indian tribes with a view '^ to devise the most suit- 
able plan to advance their civilization and happi- 
ness." ^ He arrived at the island, June IGth, in the 
evening, and writes of the view that greeted his eye 

1 From letter of instructions written him by Jolin C. Cal- 
houn, {Secretary of War, Feb., 1820. 



144 EAiaY MACKIXAC 

ill the iiioriiing — ..." the fort looking down from 
the high bhilf, and a fleet of Indian canoes drawn up 
on the beach, along which were pitched fifty or one 
hundred lodges — cone-shaped bark tents — filled 
with three or four hundred Indians, men, ^voiiien 
and children, come to receive their annuities from 
the United States Government and to trade." He 
remained a little over two weeks and preached in the 
Court House to large and attentive audiences. A 
week-day school and a Sabbath-school Avere formed 
for the children, and arrangements effected for Bible 
Society and Tract Society work. On his return to 
the East, the United Foreign Missionary Society, 
learning of the situation, took steps to plant a mis- 
sion at Mackinac. The island w^as considered a 
strategic point for such operations, even as previously 
it had been a strategic situation from a military 
point of view. It was a central gathering place for 
the Indians for hundreds of miles aw^ay as well as 
from near at hand. The mission was established in 
1823. The Eev. Win. Ferry, a Presbyterian min- 
ister from the East, was appointed superintendent. 
The Mission w^as designed chiefly as a school for 
the training of Indian youth. It oi)ened with twelve 
pupils. The second year it numbered seventy. Two 
years after the opening of the enterprise the large 
school building and boarding house, now the hotel 
at the east end of the island, and bearing the original 
name " Mission House," was built. In 1826 the So- 
ciety which had begun the w^ork and maintained it 
for three years, was merged with the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Hence- 
forth, until it closed, the Mackinac Mission was the 



ts 





GOOD AVORK OF THE SCHOOL 147 

work of tliat Jioard with lieadqiuirters in IJoston. 
For several years the attc^idance at the school aver- 
aged about one hnndred and fifty a year. Major 
Anderson, of the Canadian service, writing in 1828, 
says that when this mission bnikling was erected it 
was thonght to be large enongh to accommodate all 
who might desire its privileges, but snch was the 
thirst for knowledge, that the honse was then full ; 
and at least fifty more had sought admission that sea- 
son who could not be received for lack of room. 

Besides the rudiments of English edn cation, the 
boys were taught the more useful sort of handicraft 
and trades, and the girls were taught sewing and 
housework. They were at all times under Christian 
iiiiluence, and were systematically instructed in the 
truths of the Gospel. In the Biography of Mrs. 
Jeremiah Porter, who before her marriage was Miss 
Chappelle, and who spent two years (1830-32) on the 
island, is given an extract from her diary, in which 
she speaks of visiting the Mission House and hearing 
the young Indian girls, at their evening lesson, repeat 
together the 23rd Psalm and the 55th chapter of 
Isaiah, and of hearing a hymn sung ^^ by sixteen 
sweet Indian voices which was particularly touch- 
ing." Col. Thos. McKenney, of the Indian Depart- 
ment, gives another interesting glimpse of the school 
in his book, '' Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes," 
published in 1827. Lie had been sent out, the year 
before, from Washington as joint commissioner with 
General Cass in negotiating a treaty Avith the Indians 
of the North. Having touched at Mackinac he de- 
scribes his calling, in company with Mr. Bobert 
Stuart, at '' tlie Missionary establishment in charge 



148 EAELY MACKINAC 

of Mr. Ferry.'' The school family were at supper, 
and he writes, ^^ we joined them in their prayers, 
which are offered after this meal." On another day 
he again visited the school, and rei:>orted of it: 
" The buildings are admirably adapted for the object 
for Avhich they were bnilt. They are composed of a 
center and two wings — the center is occupied chiefly 
as the eating department and the offices connected 
therewith. The western wing accommodated the 
family. In the eastern wing are the school rooms, 
and below, in the ground stor}^, are apartments for 
shoemakers and other manufactures. In the girls' 
school were seventy-three, from four to seventeen 
years old. In personal cleanliness and neatness, in 
behavior, in attainments in various branches, no chil- 
dren, white or red, excel them. The boys' school has 
about eighty, from four to eighteen. One is from 
Fond du Lac, upwards of seven hundred miles. An- 
other from the Lake of the Woods. How far they 
have come to get light ! " Referring to the Super- 
intendent, Mr. Ferry, he speaks of him in terms of 
unqualified approbation. '^ Few men possess his 
skill, his qualification, his industry and devotion to 
the work. Such a pattern of practical industry is 
Avithout price in such an establishment. Indeed, the 
entire mission family appeared to me to have under- 
taken this most interesting charge from the purest 
motives." He makes mention of Mrs. Robert Stuart 
as '' an excellent, accomplished and intelligent lady, 
whose soul is in this Avork of mercy. This school is 
in her eyes, the green spot of the island. With her 
influence and means she has held uj) the hands that 
were ready, in the beginning uf this establishment^ 



THE MISSION CnURCII 1^9 

to lun.o. ,Vnvu. Sl.o look« „pon Mr. Ferry n«a l.is 
labors us being- word, .H,ro to the islan.l than all the 
land of wbioh it, is oomposcl; whilst bo w,.h grali- 
tude, n>entions her kindness, and tbnt of ber eo-ope,- 

tino; husband." ^ i • ,. 

Mrs. John Kinzie, already referred to as being on 
the island in 1830, visited the ^lission, and m her 
book makes similar testimony concerning it, saying 
Long other things: "Through the zeal and good 
imnagement of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry, and he f oste - 
i„g encouragement of the congregation, the school 

■was in great repute." 

A church for the island soon grew oiit of the 
school. It was Presbyterian in name and form, it 
^vas a branch of Mr. Ferry's work, and he was the 
pastor during the whole time 1- . -^"^^f J^ ^'^ - 
sland. A church building, the historic Old Mis 
sion Church," still standing in its original dimensions 
Tl appeara'nce, was built in 1829-30 ^ac mac in 
those days shared with Detroit m dist-ction e 
two towns being almost the only places of note m the 
State of Michigan. The Fur Company's busii o. , 
Wher with the general trading interests which 
centered here, brought to the island a considerable 
population. Thus large and interesting congreg - 
IL were furnished for this church. Beside e 
teachers and their families, «"d ^he pupils of the 
mission school, there were many families of the v - 
lage, officers and clerks of the company, trader 
na^tiU Indian converts and others who were membe s 
in regular attendance. The military post, too, used 
to be represented -officers and men coming do^vii 
the street on Sunday mornings m martial step, i he 



150 EARLY ]\rACKI^^AC 

soldiers Avoiild stack their gnus outside in front of 
the chnrch ; one of the men Avonhl he detailed to stand 
gnard over the arms, while the others wonld file into 
the pews set apart for their accommodation. 

The whole nnmher of memhers enrolled dnring the 
history of the chnrch was abont eighty, exclnsive of 
the mission family. As a pioneer chnrch on the 
wilderness frontier, it was remarkable in having on 
its membership roll, and among its office bearers as 
Ruling Elders^ two men of snch standing and public 
name as Robert Stuart and TIenry R. Schoolcraft. 

The Mackinac experiment of mission work un- 
fortunately, was not continued long enough to show 
the largest results. Changes took place on the island 
which seriously affected the situation. It ceased to 
be the great resort for the Indians it had been at first. 
The Michigan lands were coming in demand for 
settlement; and the Government was deporting some 
of the tribes to reservations farther West. ]\Ir. 
Astor retired from the Fur Company, and that busi- 
ness lost its former magniitude. This involved the 
loss of many families and a change in social ccmdi- 
tions. In 1834, Mr. Ferry removed from the island,^ 
as did Mr. Stuart, the same year. Thus, for a vari- 
ety of reasons the place ceasing to be an advantageous 
point for the work, it Avas deemed best to discontinue 
it; and about 1836 the land (some twelve acres) and 
the buildings thereon were sold, and in 1837 the Mis- 
sion was formally given up. During the brief his- 
tory of the school, however, not less than five hundred 

iMr. Ferry settled at wliat became Grand Haven, in Michi- 
gan, liimself foundinti' the city and also its Preslnicrian Chnrch, 
and continned to resich- there nnlil his death in IStlT. 



STOKY OF CHUSKA 153 

children of Indian blood jind habits acqnired the 
rndiiiients of edncation, and were tani>ht the pursnits 
and toils of civilized life, and many became Chris- 
tians. The American Board at that time considered 
that the Mackinac Mission had been very successfnl, 
especially in its outreaching influence thronghont the 
surrounding regions. 

One instance of remarkable conversion in the work 
of the Mission, w^as that of an old Indian necroman- 
cer or " medicine man." His name was Wazhuska, 
or more popularly, Chuska. For forty years he had 
been famous on the island in the practice of that 
mysterious occultism which has often been found 
among low and barbarous races. He was supposed 
by his people to have supernatural power, and indeed 
the instances which have been reported of his strange 
facility seem remarkable. A sorcerer he might have 
been called, or, as such have also been designated, a 
" practitioner of the black art." He embraced the 
Christian faith with clear perception of its essential 
truths, and with great simplicity of spirit ; and en- 
tirely renounced all his " hidden works of darkness," 
together with the vice of drunkenness to which he had 
been lamentably addicted, and after a year of testing 
and probation was admitted to membership in the 
Mission Church. He died in 1837, and was buried 
on Eound Island. This story of Chuska and his con- 
version by the power of divine grace, was considered 
of such interest that we find it related by Schoolcraft 
in three of his books — his '^ Personal Memoirs," his 
'' Oneota " (a collection of miscellany which tells of 
Chuska under the heading " The Magician of the 
Manitouline Islands"), and in his elaborate six vol- 



154 EAELY ]\rACKIXAC 

iinie work pnblislied hy act of Congress. Tii his 
account of the case as given in the Last named publica- 
tion he furnishes representations of the crude picto- 
graphic cliarnis, and totems and symbols, which 
Chuska was accustomed to use in his pagan incanta- 
tions, and which at the time of his conversion he had 
surrendered to Mr. Schoolcraft. The tale of Chuska. 
is also told by Mrs. Jameson in the narrative of her 
visit to Mackinac in 1837 ; and in Strickland's ''Old 
Mackinaw." 

The Mission given up, the school closed, the teach- 
ers and their families gone, the trade and emporium 
character of the village falling away, the church 
organization did not long survive. There was no 
successor of Mr. Ferry in the pastorate. Mr. School- 
craft, as an office bearer in the church, and always 
actively interested in its welfare, did all that a lay- 
man, so fully occupied as he, could do for its mainte- 
nance, often conducting a Sabbath service and reading 
a sermon to the people from some good collection. 
But so largely losing its families by removal, and 
unable under existing conditions to secure a pastor, 
the church organization became extinct. The church 
building, however, the " Old Mission Church " as it 
is familiarly known to this day, has survived for 
sixty years the lapse of the organization. It is prob- 
ably the oldest Protestant Church structure in the 
whole Northwest. And while other ancient church 
buildings have been enlarged and changed in the 
course of years ; and extension put on, or a front or 
a tower added, or other material alterations made; 
this one, from end to end, and in its entire structural 
form, remains the same as at the time of its early 



THE OLD ClIUKCH 155 

(lodieation. It has stood four square to all tlio winds 
lliat have blown, as " solid as the faith of those who 
hiiilt it," 1 iinehaiioed from its orioinal style and its 
bare and simple apjiearanee, with its old weather- 
vane and its wonderfnlly bright tin-topped belfry — a 
mnte memorial of a most worthy history of two gen- 
erations ago. Despite its disnse and its increasing 
dilapidation, it has long been an object of tender 
interest, and has been visited by hundreds every sea- 
son. It is gratifying, therefore, to know that a 
nnmber of the summer cottagers and other visitors, 
joined by some of the island residents, have pur- 
chased the old church, and repaired and restored it so 
as to present the old-time appearance in which it had 
been known for well nigh seventy years.^ The gray 
Aveather-worn exterior is purposely left unpainted. 
The same old 'Miigh-up " pulpit, the plain square 
pews with doors on them, the diminutive panes of 
glass in the windows, the quaint old-fashioned gallery 
at the entrance end — all these features appear as at 
the first. The property is held in trust for the pur- 
chasers by a board of seven trustees, five of Avhom are 
to be visitors who own or rent cottages, and two to 
be residents of the village. There is no ecclesiastical 
organization in connection with the building, nor anv 
denominational color or control. The motive in the 
movement has been, first, to preserve the old sanctuary 
as a historic relic of the island and memorial of early 
mission work ; and, second, to use it as a chapel for 
union religious services during the few weeks wdien 
summer tourists crowd the island. 



1 Miss Woolson's " Anne." 

2 T^epaired and restored in 1895. 



OHAPTEPt XTII 

Our Island in its dimensions is three miles east 
and west, and two miles north and south. It has a 
crescent shaped harbor, which gives the same out- 
line to the village nestling on the rounded beach. 
There can be few places so small and circumscribed 
that can furnish so many pleasing impressions. In 
its antiquarian interest, in its unlikeness to the out- 
side world, in its dim traditions, and in its entrancing 
charms of natural scenery, there is found every vari- 
ety for the eye, the taste and the imagination. While 
small enough to steam around it in an hour on the 
excursion boats, it is yet large enough to admit of 
long secluded walks through its quiet, gentle woods. 
In the three score years or more that visitors have 
been coming here, there have grown up for it such 
tributes and terms of admiration as. Gem of the 
Straits, Fairy Isle, Tourists' Paradise, Princess of 
the Islands, and such like. 

Rising almost perpendicularly out of the water, 
one hundred and fifty feet high, with its white stone 
cliffs and bluffs, and twice that height back on the 
crest of the hill, and covered with the densest and 
greenest foliage, it is an object of sight for many miles 
in every direction. Throughout we find that de- 
velopment and variety of beauty which nature makes 
when left to herself. The trees are the maple, and 
pine, and birch, and old beeches with strait and far- 

156 



CURIOSITIES IX STONE 



157 



reaching branches and with nigged trunks, on which 
can be seen initials and dates running back many 
years — the mementos of visitors of long ago. The 
hardy cedar abounds also, and the evergreen spruce, 
larch and laurel, and tamarack. Throughout the 
woods running in different directions, are winding 
roads, arched and shaded by the overhanging tree- 





- 


P^I^'!^^^^Mal|B^^BIWH&v - ~~ * '^^^^HL^^^**^^^ 


N 




1^ 




^ 


fr^ .:iK^-^^HKfei^^^NI^||B| 


^pi 


SS'S^^Hr "^' ^^^^ 


Hi 



ARCH ROCK. 



tops, as if they were continuous bowers, and bewitch- 
ing footpaths and trails ; the fragrance of the fir and 
the balsam is everywhere, and a buoyancy in the 
atmosphere which invites to walking — the whole 
tract being safe, always, for even children to wander 
in. You come upon patches of the delicate wild 
strawberry with its aromatic flavor, the wild rose, the 
blue gentian, profuse beds of daisies, said to be of 



158 EARLY MACKINAC 

tlie largest variety in America, the curious '^ Indian 
pipes/' luxuriant ferns in dark nooks^ forever hidden 
from the sun, and thickest coverings of moss on 
rocks and old tree trunks. Then always, from every 
quarter and in every direction, are to be seen the 
great waters of the lakes, so many " seas of sweet 
water," as they were described by Cadillac, the early 
French commander in this region — Huron to the 
east and Michigan on the west, with the Mackinac 
Straits between, and all so deep, so pure, so beau- 
tifully colored ; and whether in the dead calm, 
Avhen smooth as a floor, or shimmering and glisten- 
ing in the sunshine, or in the silvery sheen of 
the moon at night, or again tossing and billowing in 
the storm — always exercising the power of a spell 
upon the beholder. Ever in sight, too, are the neigh- 
boring islands, standing out in the midst as masses 
of living green ; and the light-houses with their faith- 
ful, friendly night work ; and the young cities on the 
two mainlands in opposite directions; and always the 
picturesque old fort. Then, scattered over the is- 
lands are glens, and dells, and springs, and fantastic 
rock formations, (" rock-osities " they ^vere some- 
times facetiously called in early days). Many of 
these formations are interesting in a geological point 
of view as well as for their marked appearance and 
their legendary associations ; and two of them. Sugar 
Loaf and Arch Rock, have been much studied by sci- 
entists, and are pictured in certain college text books 
to illustrate the teachings of natural science. 

On the eastern part of the island you come on cer- 
tain openings which the earlier French termed Grands 
Jardins. Schoolcraft says no resident pretended to 



SUGAK LOAF 161 

know tlieir origin; that tliey had evidently been 
cleared for tilling purposes at a very early. day, and 
that in his time there were mounds of stones, in a 
little valley near Arch Rock, which resembled the 
Scotch cairns, and which he supposes were the stones 
gathered out in the preparation of these little fields. 
These openings continued, at times, to be utilized for 
planting purposes to a period within the memory of 
persons now living on the island. For a long time 
past, however, they have been left alone, and nature 
has beautifully adorned them with a very luxuriant 
and graceful growth of evergreen trees and parterres 
of juniper in self-arranged grou])ing and order, mak- 
ing each such place appear as if laid out and culti- 
vated on the most artistic plans of landscape garden- 
ing. 

For summer comfort — that is, for the escape of 
heat and the enjoyment of sifted, clean, delicious air 
— there can be no j^lace excelling. As an old-time 
frequenter once said of it : '' It must be air that came 
from Eden and escaped the curse.'' The immense 
bodies of water in the necklace of lakes thrown about 
the island become the regulator of its temperature. 
The only complaint that visitors ever make of the cli- 
mate, is that it is not quite warm enough, and that 
blankets can not be " put away for the summer," but 
are in nightly requisition, and that the '' family 
hearthstone " claims July and August as part of its 
working season. Malaria and hay fever are un- 
known. Dr. Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati, an emi- 
nent medical authority in his day, thus Avrote from 
the island: ^^ To one of jaded sensibilities, all around 



162 EAELY MACK IX AC 

liim is refreshing. A feeling of security conies over 
him, and Avlien, from tlie rocky battlements of Fort 
Mackinac, he looks down npon the surrounding 
wastes, they seem a mount of defense against the host 
of annoyances from which he has sought refiige — 
the historic associations, not less than the scenery of 
the island, being well fitted to maintain the salutary 
mental excitement." ^ 

The island has its legends, and folk-lore, and tra- 
ditiijuary tales of romance and tragedy. There is 
not so much of this, however, as nuiny suppose. It 
is small in area and its scope for scenes, and tales, 
and associations is limited. Reference has already 
been made to Arch Rock as the gateway of entrance, 
in the Indian mind, for their Manitou of the lakes, 
when he visited the island, and to Sugar Loaf as his 
fancied wigwam, and to other rock formations which 
towered above the ground and Avere personified into 
Avatching giants. The Devil's Kitchen, on the soutli- 
Avest beach, has also been mentioned, but as divested 
of all mystery and association Avith the dim and early 
past. Chinmey Rock and Fairy Arch are but appro- 
priate names for interesting natural objects. The 
lofty, jutting clifi known as Pontiac's Look-out, is 
undoubtedly an admirable look-out spot, and is often 
so used now, as it ])robably often Avas in the days of 
Indian strifes Avhen canoes of Avar parties Avent to and 
fro over the Avaters of the Straits. Rut Ave can not 
A'ouch for its ever having been Pontiac's Avatch-tower. 

1 " Treatise o)i the Principal Diseases of yorth America,'' p. 
348. 

" Hygeia, too. should place her temple here: for it has one 
of the purest, driest, cleanest and most healthful atmospheres." 
— Schoolcraft. 



SUGAR LOAF 



163 



For although the influence of that chieftain was felt 
in these remote parts, his home was near Detroit; 
and while we read of his traveling to the East and 
the South, and as having liad part in the battle of 
Braddock's defeat near Pittsburgh, we find nothing 
to show that he had ever been so far north as our is- 
land, or at least 
had ever sojourned 
there. Lover's 
Leap, rising ab- 
ruptly 145 feet 
above the lake, is 
too good a pinna- 
cle, and too suit- 
able for such sadly 
romantic purpose, 
as far as precipi- 
tous height and 
frightful rocks be- 
neath are con- 
cerned, liot to have 
suggested the tale 
of the too faithful, 
heart-sore Indian 
maiden. The story of Skull Cave has already been 
told; and although a piece of history, as far as the 
name of Ilenry the trader figures in it, should be 
justly regarded with as much interest as if it be- 
longed to myth and fable. But at the same time, 
with all the modifications which a sober realism may 
demand, there is begotten in the mind of everyone 
who breathes the soft and dreamy air, and surrenders 
himself to the witchery of the little island, an im- 




CHIMNEY ROCK. 



164 



EARLY MACKINAC 



pressi(jn of tlie weird, and the mystical, and the po- 
etic, however little defined and embodied it may be. 
This impression is increased in the sense of charm 
imparted by the dim and shadowy past of a noble 
but untutored race of nature's children in connection 
with a spot of such rare attractiveness, and which, dis- 
similar in formation and character from all the other 




SUGAR LOAF. 



land about, seems as though it were separate from the 
ordinary seats of life. 

Arch Eock has long been celebrated. It appears 
as if hanging in the air, and as a caprice of nature. 
It is a part of the precipitous cliif-side, and stands a 
hundred and forty feet above the water's edge. It 
has been accounted for by the more rapid decomposi- 
tion of the lower than of the upper parts of the cal- 



AKCli ROCK 1G5 

careous stone bank — which process, however, it used 
to be thought, was fast extending to the wliole. Mc- 
Kenney in his '' Tonr of the Lakes," published in 
1827, thus writes : " This arch is crumbling, and a 
few years will deprive the island of Michilimackinac 
of a curiosity which it is worth visiting to see, even 
if this were the only inducement." The latter re- 
mark is most true, but we are glad he was so mis- 
taken in the first part of his sentence. The arch has 
survived the unfortunate prophecy for seventy years, 
and bids fair still to hold on. It is true, however, 
that some portions may have fallen, and the surface 
of the cross-way been reduced, since the days Avhen 
boys played on it, and when, according to an early 
tradition, a lady rode horse-back over the span. 

Sugar Loaf is another curiosity in stone ; conical 
in shape, like the old-fashioned form in which hard, 
white sugar used to be prepared. Including the 
plateau out of which it rises, it is two hundred and 
eighty-four feet high, erect and rugged, in appear- 
ance somewhat between a pyramid of Egypt and an 
obelisk. Like the Arch, it is a '' survival of the fit- 
test " — the softer substance about it being worn 
away and carried off in the process of geological 
changes, and leaving it solitary among the trees. 

Robinson's Folly is the lofty, broad and blunt pre- 
cipitous cliff at the East end of the island, one hun- 
dred and twenty-seven feet above the beach. The 
origin of the name is uncertain, save that it is asso- 
ciated in some way with the English Captain Robert- 
son (Robinson) who belonged to the fort garrison for 
seven years, and, as already mentioned, was its com- 
mandant from 1782 to 1787. There are no less than 



166 EAELY MACKmAC 

five traditionary stories, or legends^ in ex])lanation of 
tlie name. These stories vary from the prosaic and 
trifling, to the very romantic and tragical. A com- 
mon acconnt is that lie bnilt a little bower house on 
the very edge of the cliff which he made a place of re- 
sort, and revelry mayhap, in summer days; and that 
once, either by a gale of wind or by the crumbling 
of the outer ledge of stone, the house fell to the beach 
below. One version of the legend has Robinson him- 
self in the house at the time, and, like a devoted sea 
captain '' going down with his ship," dashed to death 
in the fall. Another is that on one occasion when a 
feast and carousal were projected on the cliff, and 
when the things of good cheer were all in readiness, 
and the participants, led by their host, delaying for a 
little their arrival, some lurking Indians, watchful 
and very hungry, stole a march on the company and 
devoured all that was in sight. 

The other tales are of a different hue. One is, 
that once walking near this spot the Captain thought 
he saw just before him, and gazing at him, a beautiful 
maiden. On his attempting gallantly to approach 
her, she kept receding, and walking backwards as she 
moved she came dangerously near the edge. As he 
rushed forward to her rescue, the girl proved to be but 
a phantom and dissolved into thin air, while the im- 
])etuous captain was dashed to death on the rocks be- 
low. Yet another is of this order: That Robertson 
(Robinson) had been one of the garrison force at 
the old fort across the Straits at the time of the mas- 
sacre in 1763, and had been saved by an Indian girl 
who was exceedingly attached to him. After re- 
moving to the island, and bringing a white bride 




ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 

A larg:e ledge formerly projected from the top of this cliflf, overhanging 
the beach and commanding a view of the lake and the snrronnding 
islands. On that ledge it is probable the fateful summer house 
had been erected. In course of time this projecting part broke 
and fell to the beach below. The rocks to-day seen at the base 
are doubtless some of the fragments. The whole of the crag did 
not sheer off at once, as an old drawing, made in 1839, shows a 
portion still remaining. 



ROBTXSON'S FOT.LY 169 

there, tlie Indian girl followed liini nnd dwelt in a 
lodge he had bnilt for her on the brow of the great 
cliif, nnrsing her jealonsy and revenge. 8he begged 
one last interview with him before leaving the place 
forever. On the Captain's granting this, and stand- 
ing beside her on the edge, she snddenly seized his 
arm in her frenzy and leaped off, dragging him with 
her to death. 

There is one more of this harrowingly tragical 
kind, in the attempt to explain the naming, which 
had much currency in earlier days, and is given in 
tourists' notes of sixty years ago : That Robinson 
had married an amiable and attractive Indian girl, 
Wintemoyeh, the youngest daughter of Peezhicki, a 
great war chief of the Chippewas, and had brought 
her to his home at the fort. This aroused the deadly 
hatred of Peezhicki, who had reserved the girl for 
one of the warriors of his tribe. Eobinson celebrated 
his marriage by giving a banquet feast in his bower 
on the cliff. The bride was ju-esent, and a company 
of guests. The father learned of the feast and con- 
cealed himself in the cedar bushes to shoot the man 
who had taken his daughter. A faithful sergeant, (the 
story even gives his name, MacWhorter), was pres- 
ent and saw the Indian level his gun. He sprang up 
to protect the Captain, and himself received the shot 
and fell dead. Eobinson then grappled with the 
fierce chief, and in the struggle the two men came 
dangerously near the brow\ The Indian, with his 
tomahawk raised, took a step or two backward to get 
better poise for his blow. This brought him to the 
very edge. A piece of stone gave way and he fell, 
but saved himself by catching at the projecting root 



ITO EARLY MACKIXAC 

of a tree. Tlie gii'l now seeing lier Inisband safe and 
only her father in daniier, sprang forward to his 
help. Tie was thns able to raise himself to where 
she stood. Then seizing her aronnd the waist, he 
dashed off from the cliff and both perished together. 
The first two of these stories concerning the f anions 
cliff, might very natnrally snggest the name " Folly.'' 
Bnt the others smack more of profonnd tragedy, 
spiced with romance. Of conrse, Robinson was not 
in the massacre affair of long before, across the 
straits ; he being at that time in army service, nnder 
Gen. Bonquet, against the Indians in Eastern Penn- 
sylvania. That he met his death on the island by 
falling over the cliff, or even in a more normal man- 
ner, is a snpposition only, withont any evidence. 
There is reason to snppose he still " lived to fight 
another day'' after leaving the island post. It may 
be added, too, that at the period of his INfackinac 
command he had already seen over thirty years of 
service in the English army, and was no longer in 
the romance and lively heyday of yonth. There 
mnst, however, have been something abont a snmmer 
bower or hnt, and something abont feasting, and 
something abont a dreadful fall, which illustrated 
the '' folly " of establishing a pleasure resort on the 
very brow of a dreadful preci])ice. Viewed to- 
gether, these stories all become interesting as throw- 
ing some light on the origin of myths, and as show- 
ing how traditions, exceedingly variant, may yet have 
some of the same threads running through them all. 
But I would not philosophize. I simply rehearse 
these stories, the trivial and the grave, and leave 
them to the imagination and the ehoiee of the reader. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Feom an early clay the island's charm of sylvan 
and water scenery and its delightful summer air, to- 
gether with its historical associations and its flavor 
of antiquity, gave it a wide-spread fame. There are 
but few places anywhere in our country that are 
older as tourist resorts. Seventy and eighty years 
ago visitors were coming here, despite the difficulty 
and tedium in that time, of reaching so remote a 
point. Persons of high distinction in public life 
and in the walks of literature, and travelers from 
foreign countries, were often among the visitors ; 
and our island has figured in many descriptive 
books of travel. As some of these authors wrote so 
appreciatingly of the island, and as those particular 
books of long ago are now out of print and not easily 
accessible, I think the readers of this sketch will be 
pleased to see a few extracts. These writers all 
speak of having known the island by reputation in 
advance of their coming, and of being drawn by its 
fame. 

In 18-13, the Countess Ossoli, better known as our 
American Margaret Fuller, of Boston, spent nine 
days in Mackinac, as part of a protracted journey 
she made in the northwest, and which she detailed in 
her book, " Summer on the Lakes." She expressed 
in advance her pleasurable anticipation of " the most 
celebrated beauties of the island of Mackinac ; " and 



172 



EAELY MACKINAC 



then adds lier tribute to '' the exceeding beanty of the 
spot and its i)osition." She arrived at a time when 
nearly two tlionsand Indians (and " more cominii; ev- 
ery day") Avere encamped on the beach to receive 
their annual payments from the g'overnment. As the 
vessel came into the harbor '^ the Captain had some 
rockets let off which greatly excited the Indians, and 

their wild cries re- 
sounded along the 
shores." The is- 
land was '' a scene 
of ideal loveliness, 
and these wild 
forms adorned it 
as looking so at 
home in it." She 
represents it as a 
'^ ]deasing sight, 
after the raw, 
crude, staring as- 
semblage of honses 
everywhere snre to 
be met in this 
country, to see the 
old French town, 
mellow in its col- 
oring, and with the harmonious effect of a slow 
groAvth which assimilates naturally Avith objects 
around it." Concerning Arch Ivock, she saj^s : ^' The 
arch is perfect, Avhether you look up through it from 
the lake, or doAvn through it to the transparent 
Avaters." She both ascended and descended '^ the 
steep and crumbling path, and rested at the summit 




LESLIE AVE. 



A SCEXE ON THE BEACH 173 

beneath the. trees, and at tlie foot ui)on the cool mossy 
stones beside the hipsing wave." Sngar Loaf rock 
struck her as having '' the air of a hehnet, as seen 
from an eminence at the side. The rock may be 
ascended by the bold and agile. Half way np is a 
niche to which those, who are neither, can climb a 
ladder." The woods she describes as ^' very full in 
foliage, and in August showed the tender green and 
pliant life of June elsewhere." She gives us a view 
from the bluffs on the harbor side : ''I never wished 
to see a more fascinating picture. It was an hour of 
the deepest serenity; bright blue and gold with rich 
shadow^s. Every moment the sunlight fell more 
mellow. The Indians were grouped and scattered 
among the lodges ; the women preparing food over 
the many small fires ; the children, half naked, wild 
as little goblins, were playing both in and out of 
tlie water; bark canoes upturned upon the beach, 
and others coming, their square sails set and with 
almost arrowy speed." And a familiar picture is 
this : ^^ Those evenings we were happy, looking over 
the old-fashioned garden, over the beach, and the 
pretty island opposite, beneath the growing moon." 
A two-volume book (published anonymously and 
giving no clue to its author, except that he was a 
practicing physician of New York City), titled 
^' Life on the Lakes, or a Trip to the Pictured 
Rocks," describes a visit to Mackinac in 1835.-^ 
" Though the first glance," he says, " at any looked 
for object is most always disappointing, it is not 
so when you first see Mackinac." A moonlight 

1 The author is supposed to have been Dr. Chandler R. Gil- 
man, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. 



174 EAELY MACKIKAC 

view of the island from the waters, he thus de- 
scribes : " The scene was enchanting ; the tall white 
cliff, the whiter fort, the winding, yet still precipi- 
tous pathway, the village below buried in a deep, 
gloomy shade, the little bay where two or three 
small, half-rigged sloops lay asleep upon the water." 
It reminded him of descriptions he had read of 
Spanish scenery, ^' where the white walls of some 
Moorish castle crow^n the brow of the lofty Sierra." 
In describing his stay on the island he makes inter- 
esting mention of a Sunday service he attended at 
the Old Mission Church. He reports the building 
as neat and commodious, though the congregation 
was small. Tliere was no Protestant clergyman on 
the island, but Mr. Schoolcraft (the ruling elder of 
the church) conducted the service and read from 
some book a very good sermon. The singing of the 
choir Avas excellent, and was led by a sergeant of the 
fort. The whole appearance of the congregation, 
he thought, was very striking; officers and privates 
of the garrison, with the marks of rank of the one 
class, and the plainer uniforms of the other, were 
mingled together in the body of the church ; there 
Avere well-dressed ladies and gentlemen of the vil- 
lage along with those of simpler attire ; and here and 
there were Indians wearing blankets, and standing 
about the doors were others of that race in their or- 
dinary savage dress. 

He mentions in evident astonishment, and as con- 
veying a hint about the ishmd climate, his eating 
clierries and currants in ]\Ir. Schoolcraft's garden 
in the month of Sei)tember. And as a piece of 
harndess pleasantry, we may yet give another of 



CAPTAIX MARIIYATT 175 

his observations of sixty-two years ago : ^' There 
are more cows in Mackinac than in any other place 
of its size in the known world, and every cow has at 
least one bell." 

English visitors in their tours of observation 
through the United States were often drawn thither 
— making the long journey to these upper lakes, and 
stopping off to see the island of whose fame they had 
heard. Captain Marryatt, first an officer of celeb- 
rity in the English navy, but more known in this 
country as a novelist largely given to sea tales, was 
here in the summer of 1837. In his " Diary of 
America " he writes of Mackinac : ^^ It has the ap- 
pearance of a fairy island floating on the water, 
which is so pure and transparent that you may see 
down, to almost any depth, and the air above is as 
pure as the water that you feel invigorated as you 
breathe it.-^ The first reminiscence brought to my 
mind after I had landed was the description by 
Walter Scott of the island and residence of Magnus 
Troil and his daughters Minna and Brenda, in the 
novel, ^ The Pirate.' " The appearance of the vil- 
lage streets, largely given to sails, cordage, nets, fish 
barrels and the like, still further suggested the re- 
semblance to his mind, and he says he might have 
imagined himself '^ transferred to that Shetland 
Isle, had it not been for the lodges of the Indians 
on the beach, and the Indians themselves, either 

1 Marryatt's admiration of the transparent waters suggests 
what I find related of a certain lady of long ago, that once sail- 
ing in the harbor and gazing with rapt fondness into the pel- 
lucid depths, she enthusiastically exclaimed: "Oh, I could 
wish to be drowned in these pure, beautiful waters! " 



176 EARLY MACKINAC 

running about or lying on the porches before the 
whisky stores." 

There were also two lady A^isitors here from Eng- 
land, in the days of early Mackinac: Mvs. Jameson 
and Miss Harriet Martineau. Both have high rank 
and distinction in English literature. Each of 
them published her impressions of ^lackinac after 
returning home. In their admiration and enthu- 
siasm for the island they could not be surpassed by 
the most devoted American visitor wdio ever touched 
these shores. 

Mrs. Jameson is well known as the writer of such 
books as '^ Sacred and Legendary Art," ^' Legends of 
the Madonna," '' Essays of Art, Literature and So- 
cial Morals," " Memoirs of the Early Italian Paint- 
ers," etc. Miss Martineau Avas of more vigorous 
intellect, and her Avritings deal more with subjects 
of political economy and social philosophy. She 
it was, too, Avho translated and introduced into Eng- 
land the writings of the Erench philosopher Comte. 
As both these books Avhich touch on Mackinac, Avrit- 
ten over sixty years ago, were descriptive of travels, 
and not of the same general interest which attaches 
to their other writings, they are noAv out of print and 
have become rare. 

Mrs. Jameson's visit Avas in the summer of 
1837. She came up Lake Huron from Detroit by 
steamboat, and arrived in the harbor at early daAA^. 
She thus describes her first view of the island as 
she had it from the deck of the A^essel : " We Avere 
lying in a tiny bay, crescent-shaped. On the east 
the Avliole sky Avas flushed Avith a deep amber glow 
flecked Avith softest shadows of rose color, the same 



MRS. JAMESOK 177 

splendor reflected in the lake ; and between the glory 
above and the glory below stood the little mission- 
ary chnrch, its light spire and belfry defined against 
the sky." She speaks of the '' abrupt and pictur- 
esque heights robed in richest foliage," and of the 
^' little fortress, snoAV-Avhite and gleaming in the 
morning light;" of an encampment of Indian wig- 
wams, C picturesque dormitories," she calls them) 
up and down the beach on the edge of the lake which, 
^' transfused and unruffled, reflected every form as 
in a mirror, ... an elysian stillness and balmy se- 
renity enwrapping the whole." And, again, we 
hear her speaking of '' the exceeding beauty of this 
little paradise of an island, the attention which has 
been excited by its enchanting scenery, and the sa- 
lubrity of its summer climate." 

Mrs. Jameson made quite an extended stay at 
Mackinac, the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Schoolcraft, 
at their home in the Old Agency — '' The house em- 
bowered in foliage, the ground laid out in gardens, 
the gate opening on the very edge of the lake." 
She pictures Mrs. Schoolcraft with '' features de- 
cidedly Indian, accent slightly foreign, a soft, 
plaintive voice, her language pure and remarkably 
elegant, refined, womanly and unaffectedly pious." 
She saw the island throughout, taking tramps over 
it and '^ delicious drives," and writes of it as " won- 
derfully beautiful — a perpetual succession of low, 
rich groves, alleys, green dingles and bosky dales." 
After her glowing description, she sums up by say- 
ing, '^ It is a bijou of an island. A little bit of fairy 
ground, just such a thing as some of our amateur 
travelers would like to pocket and run away with 



178 EAELY MACKIXAC 

(if tlicy could) and set down in the midst of their 
fish ponds ; skull-cave, Avigwams, Indians and all." 

Miss Martineau spent two years in this country, 
traveling extensively through the States and writing 
her impressions. She published two books as the 
outcome of this journeying, '' Society in America," 
and afterwards, her '' Retrospect of Western Trav- 
eling." It was in July, 1836, that she visited 
Mackinac, and it is in the first named of these two 
books that she tells of it. She came by way of 
Lake Michigan, from Chicago, traveling in a slow- 
going sail-vessel, and approaching the island in the 
evening towards sun-setting time. xVs did Mrs. 
Jameson, so Miss Martineau first pictures it as 
viewx'd from the vessel : ^' We saw a white speck be- 
fore ns; it was the barracks of ^lackinaw, stretch- 
ing along the side of its green hills, and clearly vis- 
ible before the town came into view. The island 
looked enchanting as we approached, as I think it 
ahvays must, though we had tlie advantage of see- 
ing it first steeped in the most golden sunshine that 
ever hallowed lake or shore." 

The day of her arrival was the 4th of July, and, 
" The colors were np on all the little vessels in the 
harbor. The national flag streamed from the gar- 
rison. The soldiers thronged the walls of the bar- 
racks ; half-breed boys were paddling about in their 
canoes, in the transparent waters ; the half-French, 
half-Indian population of the place were all abroad 
in their best. An Indian lodge was on the shore, 
and a picturesque dark group stood beside it. The 
cows were coming down the steep green slope to the 



MISS MARTINEAU 179 

milking. Xotliiiig could be more bright and joy- 
ous." 

Describing the appearance of the village, she 
took note of some of the old French houses, " dusky 
and roofed with bark. The better houses stand on 
the first of the three terraces Avhich are distinctly 
marked. Behind them are swelling green knolls ; 



before them gardens sloping down to the narrow 
slip of white beach, so that the grass seems to grow 
almost into the clear rippling waves. There were 
two small piers with little barks alongside, and piles 
of wood for the steamboats. Some way to the right 
stood the quadrangle of missionary buildings, and 
the white missionary church. Still further to the 
right was a shrubby precipice down to the lake; and 
beyond, the blue waters." 

She did not leave the vessel that evening, but some 
of the party having met the commandant of the 
fort, an engagement was made for an early walk 
in the morning. So they were up and ashore at 
five o'clock, and under the escort of the ofiicer they 
took in the beauties of the hill and the woods. And 
thus she tells us of it : '' No Avords can give an idea 
of the charms of this morning walk. We Avound 
about in a vast shrubbery, Avith ripe straAvberries 
under foot, Avild floAvers all around, and scattered 
knolls and opening vistas tempting curiosity in ev- 
ery direction." Coming suddenly on Arch Rock, 
Avhich she calls the ^' Natural Bridge of ]\rackinaAV," 
she is " almost struck backwards " by the grandeur 
— " the horizon line of the lake falling behind tlie 
bridge, and the blue expanse of Avaters filling the 



180 EARLY MACKINAC 

entire arch ; shrubbery tufting the sides and dan- 
gling from tlie bridge, the soft, rich hues in wliich 
the whole was dressed seeming borrowed from the 
autumn sky." 

But especially charming and impressive, she 
thought, was the prospect from Fort Holmes. As 
she looked out on the glassy lake and the green tufted 
islands, she compares it to what Xoah might have 
seen the first bright morning after the deluge. 
" Such a cluster of little paradises rising out of such 
a congregation of waters. Blue waters in every 
direction, wholly unlike any aspect of the sea, cloud 
shadows and specks of white vessels. Bowery 
islands rise out of it ; bowery promontories stretch 
down into it ; while at one's feet lies the melting 
beauty w^hicli one almost fears will vanish in its 
softness before one's eyes ; the beauty of the shadowy 
dells and sunny mounds, with brow^sing cattle and 
springing frnit and flowers. Thus, would I fain 
think, did the world emerge from the flood." 

After their early walk, Miss Martineau and her 
party took breakfast with the courteous commandant 
at one of the old stone quarters of the fort, and sat a 
while on the piazza overlooking the village and the 
harbor. In response to her inquiries about the 
healthfulness and the climate, the officer humorously 
replied that it was so healthy people had to get off 
the island to die ; and that as to the climate, they had 
nine months winter and three months cool weather. 

The sailing vessel on which the party were pas- 
sengers was bound for Detroit, and the Captain had 
already overstayed his time. So they had to leave 



THE END 181 

that same day.^ In reforeiice to lier (l('])ai'turo slio 
writer : '' We were in great delight at having seen 
]\lackinaw, at having the possession of its singular 
imagery for life. TUit this deliglit was dashed with 
the sorrow of leaving it. I con Id not have believed 
how deeply it is possible to regret a place, after so 
brief an acqnaintance with it." And then she tells 
how she did, just what thousands since have done, 
who after visiting the island have regretfully sailed 
away from it: ''We watched the island as we 
rapidly receded. Its flag first vanished ; then its 
green terraces and slopes, its white barracks, and 
dark promontories faded, till the whole disappeared 
behind a headland and light-honse of the Michigan 
shore." 

We close Miss Martinean's tribnte with this com- 
prehensive note of admiration : '' Erom place to 
])lace in my previons traveling, I had been told of 
the charms of the lakes, and especially of the Island 
of ^lackinaw. This island is chiefly known as a 
principal station of the great Xorth western Eur 
Company. Others know it as the seat of an Indian 
Mission. Others, again, as a frontier garrison. It 
is known to me as the wildest and tenderest piece of 
beauty that I have yet seen on God's earth." 

Captain Marryatt, who had read this description 
before his visit to the island (already referred to) 
said, Avhen writing his own impressions, '' Miss Mar- 
tineau has not been too lavish in her praises of 
Mackinaw." These testimonies by persons of wide 

1 Schoolcraft in his journal makes note of her calling at his 
house that morning, and of her expressing " an enthusiastic 
admiration for the natural beauties of Michilimackinac. 



182 EARLY MACKINAC 

travel, and of cultivated taste and power of observa- 
tion, and visitors as they were from another land, 
come down to ns very pleasantly from those far gone 
days. 



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Robert's History of Canada. 

183 



184 EAELY MACKI^^AC 

Hinsdale's Old North-west. 

Moore's The Xorth-west iiiidor Tlaee Flags. 

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Rev. John H. Pitezel's Light and Shadows of Missionary Life. 



AUG 30 1912 



